Drive, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Business Bestseller, by Daniel H. Pink
With so many books out there and so little time, the question is, which ones should you read and which should you skip? Well, if you are at all in a leadership position, and let’s face it, we’re all trying to lead someone, whether it’s your agency, your Rotary Club or simply your kids, Drive, by Daniel Pink is a must read.
What’s it about?
Probably the best summary of the book is by Pink himself in what he calls his Twitter summary: “Carrots & sticks are so last century. Drive says for 21st century work, we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery & purpose.”
Pink’s thesis is that business needs to catch up to the advances science has made in proving how we are motivated. For simple tasks that were part of factory work in the Industrial Age, holding a carrot in front of worker and a stick behind him (both extrinsic motivators), did in fact work to motivate and produce higher outputs. The problem is that now, when our business landscape is a far cry from that age, a majority of organizations (companies, schools, non-profits, governments) are still employing these external motivation practices such as short-term incentives and pay-for-performance plans that science is showing not only don’t work, but also often do harm.
Pink pulls together research to remind us that we’re humans and humans are “intrinsically motivated purpose-maximizers, not robots that are only extrinsically motivated profit maximizers.” Science is proving that motivation is powered by what the author has coined Type I behavior or, an innate need to be creative, direct our own lives, get and be better, and be a part of something larger than ourselves.
And while we can now farm out boring routine work, much of the time to computers & robots, the elements of true motivation, or what Pink calls Motivation 3.0, are Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. And rather than just present these findings and leave it for you to figure out how to use them, he neatly included his ‘Type I Toolkit’ which is a bunch of exercises and resources for you as the leader, to create the environment in which Type I behavior can take place.
The Verdict: Should you read it?
Yup, do it now. Some new info here that not many of us have thought about, even though we know the workplace has changed dramatically. It’s an easy read, even with the scientific findings, and Pink’s efforts to make it applicable in the last section are also worth it.
This is one of those books that help you evolve with the times!
