Product Description

Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people--at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his new and paradigm-shattering book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does--and how that affects every aspect of our lives. He demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it's precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today's challenges. In Drive, he reveals the three elements of true motivation:

*Autonomy- the desire to direct our own lives
*Mastery- the urge 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

Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

Drive is bursting with big ideas-- the rare book that will change how you think and transform how you live.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3711 in Books
• Published on: 2009-12-29
• Released on: 2009-12-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
Praise for A Whole New Mind: 'My favourite business book.' Thomas L Friedman, author of The World Is Flat

Review
"Pink's analysis--and new model--of motivation offers tremendous insight into our deepest nature."
-Publishers Weekly

"Important reading...an integral addition to a growing body of literature that argues for a radical shift in how businesses operate."
-Kirkus

"Drive is the rare book that will get you to think and inspire you to act. Pink makes a strong, science-based case for rethinking motivation--and then provides the tools you need to transform your life."
-Dr. Mehmet Oz, co-author of YOU: The Owners Manual

About the Author
Daniel H. Pink is the author of the long-running New York Times and BusinessWeek bestseller A Whole New Mind, as well as The Adventures of Johnny Bunko and Free Agent Nation. He has written for The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Wired, where he is a contributing editor. He has provided analysis for CNN, CNBC, ABC, NPR, and other networks in the U.S. and abroad. Pink lectures on economic transformation and the new workplace at corporations, associations, and universities around the world.

Customer Reviews

Just as important as "A Whole New Mind"
Daniel Pink's new book follows well in the tradition of "A Whole New Mind," as he picks up on a new trend and explains it well. This time it's the apparent paradox of motivation - why do some people like Google pay their staff to regularly work on projects of their own choosing when they could be working hard on what they were hired to do?

Pink shows that there has always been monetary motivation, but that has lost its attractiveness as we've moved from the "top-down" management system to the more heuristic style (workers being free to decide how to do their jobs). He points out that repetitive jobs lend themselves more to traditional rewards, whereas money doesn't seem to motivate innovation.

I used to work for a major corporation (which we'll call "EMC," because that is their name). Pretty much everyone I met had responsibility for something, to the degree that supervisors were enablers - you went to them and told them what to do. Supervisors could (and sometimes did) give you reasons why not, but they weren't about to come into your cubicle and micromanage you. And the wider your responsibility, the harder you worked.

This system was totally unlike anything I'd come across before. Most businesses would act as though their employees couldn't be trusted. And although I was looking behind me nervously, I shone in this environment, and now I realized that's what they wanted from me.

Pink mentions Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (if that's new to you, look it up on Wikipedia), and I think he is right that now that there's a relatively well-paid group of workers, they can ask for something more than basic salary. As Pink puts it, we need to feel that the work we do is worthwhile, and thus we move to the top of Maslow's pyramid and realize esteem and self-actualization.

Hopefully you will have recognized some of the tenets of your organization. However, I think it's unlikely that all Pink's principles will have been adopted, so get this book now. It gives you a great deal to think about, and in the last section, Pink quotes people that have influenced his thinking.

Whether you run a company or see yourself as "just an employee," you need to read this. It shows pretty much everything to know about what will drive you or your staff to much better performance. It involves more than having an employee of the week, and you may find that if you work in a place that doesn't use these principles you may have to change jobs. But it will be worth it.

A Real Winner
Daniel Pink has written a highly interesting and very informative book on the truth about what motivates us.

He uses a very interesting analogy - comparing motivation to different generations of operating software. Motivation 1.0 the basic operating system for the first few thousand years was based on the primary needs of the human - food, shelter, clothing and reproduction. Eventually we moved to Motivation 2.0 - basically the carrot and the stick - reward and punishment worked fairly well for a time.

But according to Pink and other scientist, reward and punishment no longer work in most situations. We need to move to Motivation 3.0.

Pink goes into great detain about why the carrot and stick motivation does not work. "The traditional `If then' rewards can give us less of what we want. They extinguish intrinsic motivation, diminish performance, crush creativity and crowd out good behavior. The can encourage unethical behavior, create addictions and foster short-term thinking. These are the bugs in our current operating system."

The "if then" reward/punishment system does work under very limited conditions. Pink explores these.

He then introduces the I Type and X Type behavior - named for intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Type I behavior concerns itself less with external rewards and more with doing things for the joy of doing them.

There are three elements to the I Type behavior: Autonomy - we all long to be autonomous - to have control over our lives and destiny. To the extent that we don't have autonomy we feel something missing. The second element is Mastery. We need to learn to master the tasks we are undertaking. The third element is Purpose. We need to "buy in" to why we are doing things. There needs to be a reason.

The final section of the book is a Toolkit section where there are strategies for individuals, companies, tips on compensation, suggestions for education and suggested reading.

This is highly entertaining and thought provoking. At some time we all face the challenge of trying to motivate others. For the most part we have relied on the reward/punishment approach. You will learn why this does not work and a better approach to motivation no matter who you are working with.

The book is well written and there are many references to back up the claims made. I highly recommend this book.

Motivation 3.0 and the "I" Word
Daniel Pink brings us quickly through the last few generations of our world of business and comes up with a new view on what is Motivation.

Using concepts like Type A and B personalities, talking about control and carrot and stick motivation as Motivation 2.0, he introduces his view on where Motivation is today. Taking almost a 360 view of motivation, he gives us a brief history of work, harkening back to the writings of Frederick Taylor. Then, he takes us to two locations, both universities, where two psychologists focus their studies on motivation. One in the 40s, one in the last couple of decades. Our scientist of the 40s was considered a motivation heretic when discussing he issues of intrinsic motivation. Going against the flow of the time, he was up against names like Skinner and Maslow.

The more recent influencer of the concept of intrinsic motivation, starts with a life where he and his family is fleeing war torn Hungary as the Nazi occupation falls apart. He is seeing the battles between the Russians, Germans and his own people and thinks about what is it that adults can't seem to enjoy life.

New concepts of looking for creativity and what it is when someone is really into what they are doing. I mention going against the flow.....well, the concept of looking at someone when they are in a zone at work, whatever they are best at, a cook, artist, programmer, manager, they are in flow....look at the flow. I am sure you have felt it when you are hitting on all cylinders. That is flow.

The concepts of Type I and Type X are new, so, Pink shows us type I Motivation 3.0 concepts in todays companies. An Australian Software company with its FedEx Days where you have 24 hours to deliver a new concept, overnight. 3M where individuals are allowed to time to develop new product, Google, the well understood concept of 20% time.

Interesting insights are throughout. One interesting thing he talks about is where if too much control for rewards and punishment, there may be a temptation for cheating. The type I environments are more cooperative and people are willing to pull together.

I like also, where he evaluates the Baby Boomer Generation coming of age (60) and the Aha moment they are having. What is being unleashed in their lives as they look at the time they have left. Many are motivated to do something with their lives where they are having more of an impact.

Additions to the book include a Type I Toolkit, that looks at what you can do for business, yourself, schools, children, etc. He also lists books where there are additional helps to develop your more Type I behavior. Daniel Pink even gives his email so you can give him more ideas for the Toolkit.

A great read, well worth the time. This is a great book for the entreprenuer, training and HR manager or practioner, someone with a start up idea as well.

Highly Recommend.