Of Human Motivation

Overview

Rewards and punishments are failing us as motivators, declares Pink. Encouraging autonomy, mastery and purpose in personal and professional settings will lead to more productive, creative, and ultimately fulfilling lives.

Part One: A New Operating System

Chapter 1 questions the traditional view of human motivation that rewards pushing people to perform better and work harder. Pink explains that people have operating systems--the first, Motivation 1.0, is the biological drive to survive, and the second, Motivation 2.0 (M2), is driven by extrinsic motivators. Pink then describes organizations’ limited attempts to improve M2 by fostering environments for employees to grow and gain more autonomy. Pink describes how M2 is increasingly incompatible with how we organize what we do, how we think about what we do, and how we do what we do. He describes how organizations are morphing into entities that allow for a mix of goals rather than segregated by for-profit and not-for-profit. He describes how humans think irrationally, contrary to what economists may believe. Finally, Pink describes how people need to be intrinsically motivated in order for our motivational operating system to function.

In Chapter 2, Pink discusses the negative consequences of utilizing carrots and sticks, à la M2, to encourage certain actions or results. Firstly, carrots and sticks have the potential to diminish intrinsic motivation, which is driven by passion, pleasure, and interest in a certain topic or task rather than just by an external reward. Additionally, they can result in narrow, constrained thinking centered only on the reward as opposed to creative, out of the box ideas that can produce original results. Carrots and sticks can foster unethical thinking and crowd out altruistic motivations to perform a task. They could also encourage risky and reckless decision-making or foster addictions to pleasures associated with rewards. Finally, M2 incentivizes short-term thinking and cutting corners to acquire desired outcomes versus more carefully devised plans. Despite these potential adverse effects, M2 may sometimes be appropriate. There are a numerous tasks that are routine and rudimentary and therefore require minimal creativity or deep thinking; an extra incentive may help workers complete these tasks.

In Chapter 3, Pink discusses self-determination theory (SDT), which is premised on the idea that satisfaction, motivation, and happiness are based on the fulfillment of three universal human needs: “competence, autonomy, and relatedness.” SDT prescribes work environments that satisfy these needs, instead of encouraging leaders to solve problems with carrots and sticks. Pink offers his own behavioral system--Type I and Type X. Type X behavior is a manifestation of M2, which places higher value on extrinsic motivators than on intrinsic ones. Type I behavior describes Motivation 3.0, which emphasizes the importance of enjoying the activity for its own sake rather than any outcome. In the long run, Type I’s always outperform Type X’s because intrinsic motivation will sustain hard work for much longer than will extrinsic motivation. Similarly, Type I behavior improves well-being, as the focus is on autonomy, mastery and purpose, rather than money, fame, or beauty, which are all extrinsic determinants of Type X behavior. Thus, in order to improve our own lives, families, and businesses, it would be best to follow the science, and shift our mindset from Type X to Type I--from extrinsic to intrinsic motivators.

Part 2: The Three Elements

Part Two explores in-depth the three elements of “Type I” behavior-- autonomy, mastery and purpose-- to further connect how business can apply the science of human motivation to workplace performance.

Chapter 4 investigates autonomy in the context of our desire to be self-directed in our work. The autonomic workplace is achieved through the Ressler-Thompson “results-only work environment” or “ROWE” strategy, where employees are allowed freedom in their tasks and work styles, entrusted to complete their work. Companies like Google demonstrate the efficacy of this management style. When the company initiated changes that allowed time for personal projects rather than a strict regimen of scheduling and task regulation, the result was highly innovative successes like Gmail and Google Translate. Autonomic management strategies also foster more workplace collaboration.

Chapter 5 examines our compulsion for mastery. In the science fields, sense of mastery is a long-known biological need for humans to control components of their lives; most notably, accomplishing something that matters. Many corporations unhealthily focus less on mastery and more on compliance, when they should genuinely empower employees to tackle complex problems congruent with their natural mastery needs. The latter tactics lead to productivity and work satisfaction, where workers maximize “workflow,” a state of mind where one is completely and positively enveloped in work.  Pink defines this mastery as a mindset, a pain, and an asymptote. Those who believe intelligence can increase are more likely to achieve mastery; those with the “grit” to persevere are more likely to excel; and those who understand there is always more to learn and achieve will reach that optimum workflow.