Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink sets out to provide a summary of the recent findings in the fields of positive and motivational psychology and how modern business practices have failed to take modern science into account. I loved how Pink analyzed the shift in worker needs as worker tasks have changed, his discussion of real motivational psychology, and the vision he provides for the future of work with a higher degree of employee autonomy.
So what did I think overall?
The Decline of Carrots and Sticks
Behavioral scientists often divide what we learn and do into two separate categories, algorithmic tasks and heuristic tasks. Algorithmic tasks have a specific set of established instructions which you can follow routinely until their conclusion. Heuristic tasks require you to deviate from any instructions and use your own creativity and problem solving in order to be successful.
Working as a cashier scanning clothes and checking people out is algorithmic, creating the marketing campaign to get people to enter the store in the first place is heuristic. Both tasks are required for a functional modern economy, but both tasks also require different forms of motivation in order to be successful.
“A study of 11,000 industrial scientists and engineers working at companies in the United States found that the desire for intellectual challenge that is, the urge to master something new and engaging was the best predictor of productivity”
Daniel Pink
Pink shows that basic incentives, a carrot and a stick reward structure, is effective at motivating algorithmic tasks but that counterintuitively workers completing primarily heuristic tasks will actually have lower motivation in the long term when presented with rewards like cash bonuses.
“As Carol Dweck says, effort is one of the things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it”
Daniel Pink
With the consulting firm McKinsey & Co estimating that in the United States 70% of workers complete heuristic work, most US workers are being motivated with science dating back to the 1800’s and failing to effectively motivate their workforce.
Self Determination Theory and Work
Over the past 50 years behavioral scientists who study motivation have laid out three primary traits that form the basis of intrinsic motivation, what is commonly known as Self Determination Theory.
- Competence: Being comfortable with the task’s and knowing you have the necessary ability.
- Purpose: The feel that your work carries meaning for yourself, your loved ones, or your community
- Autonomy: Having control over ones time and tasks
The search shows that businesses struggle the most with autonomy when it comes to motivating their workers. With the model still looking at carrots and sticks it is no surprise that in 2004 a study of workers at an American Investment bank found that workers whose bosses offered autonomous support through empathy, meaningful feedback, ample choices, and the ability to start their own projects resulted in higher job satisfaction and performance.
“Businesses that offered autonomy grew at four times the rate of control oriented firms and had one third of the turnover.”
Daniel Pink
Following the basic guidance of modern behavioral science isn’t just an academic matter, it can play a large role in a businesses success. I encourage all business leaders to sincerely evaluate their own practices and how they are maximizing their workers autonomy.
So What?
Reading Drive made me consider the ways in which my own work does and does not create a sense of autonomy, competence, and purpose in the workplace. Pink discusses the idea of a Results Only Work Environment in which workers are only judged based on the work that they complete and not when they completed it or how long that it took.
Prior to this book I lacked the language to effectively communicate my complaints about my own motivation at work. Now I can say that my role as a salaried worker is a heuristic one where my work productivity is still being held to an algorithmic standard. I work for thirty-nine hours a week regardless of if my work takes me 20 or 39 hours and that gap between how long work takes and how long I am supposed to be busy is simply wasted time. How many employers are policing employees’ time rather than their effort?
Drive compellingly shows that businesses need to reevaluate their own expectations for workers and make adjustments that give employees higher autonomy over their own time, if not for the workers own health and well being for their own productivity at least.
