Dan Pink – The Surprising Science of Motivation
Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories — and maybe, a way forward.
“There’s a mismatch between what science knows and what business doesn’t. Here’s what science knows. One, those 20th century awards, those motivators we think are the natural part of business, do work but only in surprisingly narrow band of circumstances. Two, those if-then rewards often destory creativity. Three, the secret to high performance isn’t rewards and punishments, but that unseen intrinsic drive. The drive to do things for their own sake. The drive to do things because they matter. And here is the best part. Here is the best part. We already know this. The science confirms what we know in our hearts. So if we repair this mismatch between what science knows and what business does,. If we bring our motivation, notions of motivation into the 21st century. If we get past this lazy, dangerous idealogy of carrots and sticks, we can strengthen our businesses, we can solve a lot of those candle problems, and maybe, maybe, maybe, we can change the world. I rest my case.”
-Dan Pink: Author of a trio of provocative, bestselling books on the changing world of work.
Quote taken from “Dan Pink on the Surprising Science of Motivation”
Here is a link to Dan Pink’s website
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Comment by karl on December 8, 2009:
Carrots and sticks work on physical functions and that's where our systems has wanted to draw the line. Creativity is left to a handful who make the time to gather wool, in their minds. The rest of us are encouraged to scramble around for rewards and avoid punishments. Generally, we're discouraged from looking at the system as it has developed and question the underlying presuppositions. In the valley of the blind, the one eyed man is king for a day and then killed. Finding that intrinsic motivation can take a lifetime or be recognized early and lost to regimentation in an autistic society that has focused too much inwardly to the detriment of perspective. Observation of peripheral and pineal vision is discouraged in our mechanistic, science is reality culture. TED is great. Long live TED.