Drive by daniel pink

The Puzzling Puzzles of Harry Harlow and Edward Deci Drive offers a new way to think aboutmotivation. Most of what businesses, governments, and nonprofit organizations assume about human behavior, particularly about what motivates us, is wrong. Short-term incentives and pay-for-performance schemes come from outdated assumptions that favor external motivations (i. e. , rewards and punishments for behaving a particular way) overintrinsic motivations (i. e. , the Joy that comes from completing a task).

Organizations that rely on external rewards and punishments do so at their peril. In two separate studies, psychologists Harry Harlow and Edward Deci found that external motivations negativelyimpacted performance for non-routine tasks. Although Harlow and Deci’s results were robust, they were controversial and ignored. In the book, Drive, Dan Pink argues that it’s time to get rid of the old operating system and replace it with a more scientifically accurate understanding of human behavior. Drive, is organized into three parts. Part One reveals how external motivations (a. . a. , carrot-and-stick incentives) can do more harm than good, except in tasks that have straightforward solutions and that equire adherence to a simple set of rules. It’s time organizations move to a new mindset that embraces what Dan Pink calls Type I behavior (i. e. , behavior fueled by the inherent satisfaction of the task itself). Part Two examines the three building blocks of Type I behavior: autonomy (i. e. , our desire to be self-directed), mastery (i. e. , our urge to make progress and get better at what we do), and purpose (i. e. our yearning to contribute and to be part of something greater than ourselves).