Drive

Daniel Pink

Pink argues the shift from a Motivation 2.0 management approach (carrot and stick) to a Motivation 3.0 approach on the premise that most workers have the intrinsic drive to do good.

Rewards can deliver a short-term boost, but the effect wears off and can even reduce a person’s longer-term motivation. External reward systems such as monetary rewards are not effective in developing intrinsic motivation. Such measures usually don’t work and often harm.

Carrot and stick—Frederick Taylor, scientific management—reward the behavior you seek and punish the behavior you don’t. Motivation 2.0 is not compatible with how we organize what we do, how we think about what we do, how we do what we think we do

How we organize what we do—open-source (see HBR article on Cloud). Companies run their business on information sources created by people who were driven by intrinsic motivations—Wikipedia as an example. The most persuasive driver is how creative a person feels when working on a project. See Maxwell’s Law of Empowerment.

We are not purely economically rationale. We hang onto bad investments longer than we should because we feel sharper pain from losing money than we do pleasure from gaining the exact same amount.

For a growing number of people, their jobs have become more complex, more interesting, and more self-directed.

· Complexity—algorithmic tasks follow a simple set of steps down a pathway with one conclusion. There is an algorithm for completing the task. Heuristic tasks are the opposite—experimentation and novel solutions are required. Most work was algorithmic in the 20^th century (Frederick Taylor); much more work is heuristic in the 21^st century. Routine work can be outsourced or automated; artistic, empathetic, nonroutine work cannot. Carrots and sticks work well for algorithmic tasks and are devastating for heuristic ones. They can dampen motivation and diminish performance. In the U.S. 33.7 million people telecommute at least one day a week. Routine jobs require direction, non-routine jobs depend on self-direction.

· Extrinsic rewards can e effective for algorithmic tasks but can be dangerous for tasks that demand flexile problem-solving, inventiveness, or conceptual understanding. Goals such as sales targets that are extrinsically rewarded, can encourage unethical behavior. Rewards are addictive and come to be expected.

Late fines (p.52)—interesting study, I’ve read it before. Late fines give “permission” to be late. Late fines shift owner from a moral obligation to a financial transaction.

Seven deadly flaws of carrots and sticks

1. Extinguish intrinsic motivation

2. Diminish performance

3. Crush creativity

4. Crowd out good behavior

5. Encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior

6. Become addictive

7. Foster short-term thinking

Baseline rewards—In creative environments wages, salaries, benefits, are adequate and fair. Without a healthy baseline, motivation of any sort is difficult if not impossible. Sometimes, when algorithmic tasks are necessary, offer a rationale, acknowledge that it’s boring, give people room to do the job their way. In such cases, rewards should be unexpected and offered only after the task is completed. They should be non-monetary and could include praise, feedback, and positive information. In general, the environment should be a congenial place to work, team members should have autonomy and have ample opportunity to pursue mastery, and their work should relate to a higher purpose. (pp 64-68)

Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. Theories:

· A’s and B’s—Myers Briggs--A’s = excessive competition drive, aggressiveness, impatience, and a harrying sense of urgency. B’s = rarely harried by life or made hostile by its demands, are just as intelligent and can be just as ambitious.

· X and Y—X= old way of thinking—most people must be coerced, controlled, directed and threatened with punishment to get them to put forth adequate effort; Y = interest in work is as natural as play and work, creativity and ingenuity are widely distributed, under proper conditions people will accept even seek responsibility.

· Motivation 2.0 and 3.0—2.0, motivation is a management tool where control is the central ethnic--2.0 assumes most workers are X’ers, that they are driven by extrinsic motivators; 3.0 assumes most workers are fueled by intrinsic desires.

Motivation 3.0

Autonomy—greater job satisfaction among employees whose bosses saw issues from the employee point of view, gave meaningful feedback and information, provided ample choice over what to do and how to do it, and encouraged taking on new projects. Autonomy over what they do, how they do it, when they do it, and with whom they do it. Autonomy doesn’t discourage accountability.

Mastery—control leads to compliance, autonomy leads to engagement. Engagement leads to mastery. Flow—relationship between what a person has to do and what she can do. Goal is clear, feedback to discuss level of engagement and path toward mastery is essential. Mastery is a mindset (see Outliers, it takes 10 years to master something), “grittiness” is a better predictor of college success than test scores. Mastery is an asymptote—a straight line a curve approaches but never quite meets. The joy is in the pursuit—mastery attracts because mastery eludes.

Purpose—the most deeply motivated people hitch their desires to a cause larger than themselves. Demographics is destiny. Gen Y’s (see Howe and Strauss) are shifting the center of gravity in organizations. Redefining success and radically remixing their desired set of rewards.

Ways to improve your organization

· Give people time to work on projects they want

· Conduct an autonomy audit—p 164—ask people how much autonomy they have

· Give up control

o Involve people in goal setting

o Use non-controlling language

o Hold office hours

· Ask “what is our purpose”

· Move from “they” to “we”

Compensation

· Pay people commensurate with their colleagues and in line with similar jobs in other organizations

· Pay more than average