Daniel Pink: The Surprising Science of Motivation (And What Really Motivates Us)

Daniel Pink has a big compelling statement to make:

There’s a mismatch between what science knows
and what business does.

Pink is the author of the best-selling book ‘Drive: The Surprising Truth of What Motivates Us’, a study that argues long-held conventional beliefs in human motivation are actually hampering effective, high performance.

This is a continuation on my series of posts that discusses the intrinsic needs of employees in a new social environment that is increasingly connected through digital means and how businesses can relook its stance on employees’ engagement in social media and derive positive branding opportunities along the way. Pink’s works and ideas have been a huge recent inspiration and motivation for me to continue discussing the need of social engagement through digital means, especially within organisations, in achieving business objectives.

Now what exactly does science knows and business is doing wrong?

Monetary Rewards Do Not Guarantee Performance for 21st Century Work

Here’s the gist of Pink’s argument on what really motivates us, based on scientific findings from a Dan Ariely study sanctioned by the Federal Reserve Bank of America :

  • ‘As long as tasks involved only mechanical skills, bonuses worked as they would be expected: the higher the pay, the better the performance
  • ‘But once a task calls for even ‘rudimentary cognitive skills’*, a larger reward led to poor performance.
  • Organisations are ‘making decisions and policies about human talents (including financial incentives) based on assumptions that are outdated, unexamined and rooted in folklore than on proven findings in behavioural science.’

The Scientific Solution

In brief, Pink argues the solution to better and effective performance from modern employees are rooted, not in increased monetary rewards, but in providing the right conditions for these three intrinsic motivational factors to take shape:

  • Autonomy
    • ‘The urge to direct our own lives’
  • Mastery
    • ‘The desire to get better and better in something that matters’
  • Purpose
    • ‘The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves’

There are a lot more discussions that can be had based on Pink’s arguments and these scientific findings, including parallels that I am developing in my mind for my own arguments that social connectivity through digital means will aid in providing these intrinsic motivations for employees (for eg. social media providing us with the control to direct our personal and professional communications (Autonomy) and the abundance of real-time information on social media and on the web that can help all of us get better at our work (Mastery)).  But let’s keep that for later.

For now, what better way than to have Pink explains his argument to you in person. Here’s Pink’s hilarious talk at TEDGlobal fully discussing the inspiration behind Drive with case studies and anecdotes.

This next video is a helpful rendering of the same motivation argument made by Pink. Using ‘on point’ caricatures, this visualisation is a great tool to easily understand and absorb Pink’s refreshing perspective on what motivates us.

Connect with Pink on social media via Twitter

* Definition of Cognitive Skills:
Any mental skills that are used in the process of acquiring knowledge; including reasoning, perception and intuition.
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