I love marketing: it’s the only discipline that can attach terms like “paradigm-shattering” and “the surprising truth” to a book that summarizes 30 years of psychological research and business practice, and get away with it. That’s not to say popularization of science is to be frowned upon: with “Drive”, Daniel Pink may have done more for the advancement of intrinsic motivation than all its researchers and practitioners combined.
There are three sources of human motivation, or drives:
- biological / Motivation 1.0
- carrots-and-sticks / rewards-and-punishment / if-then / compliance- and control-driven / external / Motivation 2.0 / extrinsic / Type X
- autonomy-mastery-purpose / now-that / engagement-driven / self-directed / Motivation 3.0 / intrinsic / Type I
The carrots-and-sticks approach works for rule-based, routine, algorithmic, or left-brain tasks. For non-routine, conceptual, creative, or right-brain tasks, extrinsic motivation (goals) can do more harm than good: it’s likely to “extinguish intrinsic motivation”, “diminish performance”, “crush creativity”, crowd out good behavior” and “encourage unethical behavior”, “become addictive”, and “foster short-term thinking”.
To motivate behavior in the 21st-century organization, the activity itself rather than the goals to which it leads, must bring inherent satisfaction. This intrinsic motivation — doing something for the sake of doing it rather than for the sake of getting an external reward or avoiding an external punishment — is what your organization needs to succeed today. Intrinsic works: it outperforms extrinsic in the long run, it’s a renewable resource, and it promotes greater physical and mental well-being.
Intrinsic motivation comprises three inter-related elements:
- Autonomy: “[A] full sense of choice and volition” over their behavior can be accomplished by proving people autonomy over task (what they do), time (when they do it), team (with whom they do it), and technique (how they do it). Results-oriented work environments encourage autonomy.
- Mastery: “[B]ecoming better at something that matters” comes hand in hand with flow, or “optimal experiences when the challenges we face are matched to our abilities”. Mastery is a learning mindset, it requires pain (of the “no pain — no gain” sort) and it can never be completely attained.
- Purpose: A “cause greater and more enduring” than one’s self uses profit as a means to reaching purpose, emphasizes more than self-interest, and allows people to pursue it on their own terms (loop back to autonomy).
The last part of the book offers a toolkit of intrinsic motivation techniques for many different target audiences. Tips range from silly, such as “create your own motivational poster”, to as fundamental as, define your life’s purpose in one sentence.
Like Malcolm Gladwell or brothers Heath, Pink has the ability to package a great deal of research and case studies into a highly readable (and slightly hyped-up) volume. Read “Drive” in whole or the summary at the end (if you’re getting it from your library be prepared for a wait), or just watch this 10.5-minute animated video summary from the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
It’s the personal impact a book has that determines its value. Though I may have objections to “Drive” from the marketing standpoint, its main point(s) have confirmed a growing conviction: sustainable marketing and sustainable business overall — that is, marketing and business in the post-crash economy — needs to move away from extrinsic goals, otherwise known as metrics to intrinsic ones. The upcoming series on the unmetrics of sustainable marketing will deal with that in detail. Stay tuned!
Have you read “Drive”? What’s your main takeaway? What has the book motivated you to do?
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Daniel H. Pink, “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”, New York: Riverhead Books, 2009.
