Drive:

The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Pink, Daniel H. (2002). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New
York: Penguin Group.
 Table Of Contents
 Part One: A New Operating System
 Chapter 1—The Rise and Fall of Motivation 2.0
 Chapter 2—Seven Reason Carrots and Sticks (Often) Don’t
Work . . .
 Chapter 2A—. . . And the Special Circumstances When They
Do
 Chapter 3—Type I and Type X
 Part Two: The Three Elements
 Chapter 4—Autonomy
 Chapter 5—Mastery
 Chapter 6—Purpose
 Part Three—The Type I Toolkit
 Basic Summary
 There is a disconnect between what businesses do and what the science says.
 External rewards and punishments (carrot-and-stick) don’t always work and
can often do harm.
 To get the most out of people—to motivate the 21st century worker
(people’s enjoyment and productivity), we need to upgrade our thinking to
include autonomy, mastery and purpose.
 Autonomy: We like to be in charge of our own lives—the direction of our
lives.
 Mastery: We like to be good at stuff—urges us to get better at what we like
and what we are good at.
 Purpose: Why we get up in the morning—we desire to be needed for
something larger than ourselves.

 Video Summary Links:

• TED Talk, The Puzzle of Motivation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y
• RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden
truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
 Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of Motivation 2.0
 We have sets of assumptions that we operate under—sets of assumptions and
protocols about how the world works. These assumptions take on basic
ideas of motivation.
 There are three types of motivation:
 Motivation 1.0: humans are biological creatures that have natural drive for needed things
such as: desire to obtain food, water, security, and sex.
 Motivation 2.0: humans responded to basic rewards (carrot) and punishments (stick) in our
environment.
 This type of motivation works fine for routine tasks with set directions, one path, and one
potential outcome. But it is proving incompatible with how we organize, think, and do what we
do in today’s world.
 Motivation 3.0: asserts that humans have an intrinsic motivation—desire to learn, to
create, and to better the world.
 Tasks can be divided into two categories:
 Algorithmic: a task which follows a set of established instructions down a single pathway to one
conclusion—external rewards and punishments work nicely for these types of tasks.
 Heuristic: a task that has no algorithm, you have to experiment with possibilities and devise
a novel solution—external rewards and punishments can be detrimental for these types of
tasks.
 In the U.S., only 30% of job growth comes from algorithmic work, while 70% comes from heuristic
work.
Chapter 1: Seven Reason Carrots and Sticks (Often) Don’t Work . . .

 Motivation starts with Motivation 1.0—people need to earn a

living. If the pay is not enough or equal to their contribution,
their focus will be on the unfairness of the situation rather than
their contributions and thus there is very little motivation.
 Next, is the focus on Motivation 2.0—rewards and
consequences. These are good for algorithmic tasks (single task
with one path) but are not good for Heuristic tasks (multiple
paths requiring trial and error).
 Rewards can also make an interesting job into a drudgeries'
task—they can turn potential work-play into plain work.
Traditional “if-then” rewards can give us less of what we want
and need in our work lives.
Chapter 1: Seven Reason Carrots and Sticks (Often) Don’t Work . . .
 The flaws of Carrots and Sticks, they can
1. undermine intrinsic motivation
2. reduce performance
3. suppress creativity
4. crowd out good behavior
5. encourage short cuts, cheating, and other unethical actions
6. become addictive
7. promote short-term thinking
 For those driven by intrinsic motivation (the drive to do something because it
is interesting, challenging, and absorbing which is essential creativity—
“thinking outside the box”), the motivation of extrinsic means people taking
the quickest route rather than the best route.
 Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery
are usually healthy and meaningful. But goals imposed upon people (sales
targets, quarterly returns, standardized test scores, etc.) can often be
disingenuous and sometimes have dangerous side effects.
Chapter 2a: . . . and the Special Circumstances When They
 Carrots and sticks aren’t all bad. Can be effective for routine tasks.
 little intrinsic motivation to undermine and not much creativity to
suppress.
 More effective if you offer a rationale for why the task is necessary (even
acknowledge that it’s boring).
 You’ll increase your chances of success using rewards for routine
tasks if you:
 Offer rationale for why the task is necessary—even uninteresting tasks can
have meaning if a necessary part of a bigger picture.
 Acknowledge that the task may be boring and dull.
 Allow people to complete the task on their own way (autonomy).
 For non-routine conceptual tasks
 “Now that” rewards — non-contingent rewards given after a task is
complete — can sometimes be okay for more creative, right-brain work
 Especially if they provide useful information about performance
 Chapter 3: Type I and Type X
 Type I (Intrinsic) and Type X (Extrinsic) Behavior
 Motivation 2.0 depended on and fostered Type X
(Extrinsic) behavior—concerned with the external
rewards to which an activity leads
 Motivation 3.0 depends on and fosters Type I (Intrinsic)
behavior—concerned more with the inherent
satisfaction of the activity itself
 The good news is that Type I’s are made, not born—and
Type I behavior leads to stronger performance, greater
health, and higher overall well-being
 Chapter 4: Autonomy
Autonomy: We like to be in charge of our own lives—the direction of our
lives.
 Autonomy is different from independence. Autonomy means acting with
choice which can be individually or working with others.
 A sense of autonomy has a powerful effect on individual performance and
attitude.
 A Cornell University study found that businesses that offered autonomy grew four
times more and had one-third the turnover.
 Encourage autonomy over their: Task (what they do), Time (when they do it),
Team (who they do it with), and Technique (how they do it).
 Organizations that have found inventive, sometimes radical, ways to boost
autonomy are outperforming their competitors
 Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) – people don’t have schedules. They show
up when they want. They don’t have to be in the office at a certain time – or any time
for that matter. They just have to get their work done. How they do it, when they do
it and where they do it is up to them.
 Chapter 5: Mastery
Mastery: We like to be good at stuff—urges us to get better at
what we like and what we are good at.
 Motivation 2.0 requires compliance while motivation demands
engagement, only engagement (Motivation 3.0) can produce
mastery (becoming better at something that matters).
 Mastery begins with “flow” — optimal experiences when
challenges are matched to our abilities. Goals become clearer and
people become engaged (forgetting about time and place).
 Mastery abides by three peculiar rules:
 Mastery is a mindset: It requires the capacity to see your abilities not as
finite, but as infinitely improvable
 Mastery is a pain: It demands effort, grit, and deliberate practice
 Mastery is an asymptote: It’s impossible to fully realize, which makes it
simultaneously frustrating and alluring
 Chapter 6: Purpose
Purpose: Why we get up in the morning—we desire
to be needed for something larger than ourselves.
 Humans, by their nature, seek purpose (why they do what
they do which is larger than themselves).
 In Motivation 3.0, purpose maximization is taking its
place alongside profit maximization as an aspiration and a
guiding principle.
 This “purpose motive” is expressing itself in three ways:
 In goals that use profit to reach purpose
 In words that emphasize more than self-interest
 In policies that allow people to pursue purpose on their own
terms
 Daniel H. Pink TED Talk:
The Puzzle of Motivation

TED Talk, The Puzzle of Motivation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y

Candle Problem
Candle Problem
There are basically two types of people in the world:
1. Those that see things the way they want to see things—the way things could be.
2. Those that see things the way others do—the way things are supposed to be.
One thing is certain about this. Group No. 1 is always more successful in any endeavor than group
No. 2…100% of the time. The big idea here has to do with seeing the possibilities.
People are give a candle, matches, and a box of thumbtacks. They are told to adhere the candle to
the wall but in a way that once lit, no wax will fall on the floor/wall. Many only see candle,
matches, and thumbtacks—the way things are. Others see candle, matches, thumbtacks, and a
BOX—the potential of things. The solution requires you to use the box but you must overcome
your belief that the box is just functioning as a container for the thumbtacks and see it as part of
the solution.
 Daniel H. Pink: The Puzzle of Motivation
 In 1945, the Candle Problem was created by psychologist Karl
Duncker. Sam Glucksberg, who is now at Princeton University,
used this experiment to show the power of incentives.
 The first group he told them he was going to time them to establish
the norm for the problem. The second group he offered rewards
for how fast they completed the problem. Surprising, it took the
second group three and half minutes longer to complete the
problem.
 Daniel H. Pink’s assertion: If you look at the science, there is a
mismatch between what science knows and what business does.What's alarming here
is that our business operating system -- think of the set of assumptions and
protocols beneath our businesses, how we motivate people, how we apply our human
resources-- it's built entirely around these extrinsic motivators, around carrots and
sticks.That's actually fine for many kinds of 20th century tasks. But for 21st
century tasks, that mechanistic, reward-and-punishment approach doesn't work,
often doesn't work, and often does harm. Let me show you.
 Daniel H. Pink: The Puzzle of Motivation
 Dan Ariely, great economist, gave MIT students games—games that involved
creativity, and motor skills, and concentration. He offered three levels of rewards
(small-medium-large) for how well they did. The results: as long as the task
involved only mechanical skill, bonuses worked as they would be expected: the
higher the pay, the better the performance. But once the task called for even
rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward led to poorer performance. He
repeated the test in Madurai, India where the modest rewards would be much
more powerful but the results were the same.
 Daniel H. Pink’s further assertion: There is a mismatch between what science knows and what
business does. If we really want to get out of this economic mess, if we really want high
performance on those definitional tasks of the 21st century, the solution is not to do more of the
wrong things, to entice people with a sweeter carrot, or threaten them with a sharper stick.We need a
whole new approach. The good news is that the scientists who've been studying motivation have
given us this new approach. It's built much more around intrinsic motivation. Around the desire to
do things because they matter, because we like it, they're interesting, or part of something
important. And to my mind, that new operating system for our businesses revolves around three
elements: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives. Mastery: the
desire to get better and better at something that matters. Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in
the service of something larger than ourselves. These are the building blocks of an entirely new
operating system for our businesses.