Chris Higgins
What Really Motivates Us
by Chris Higgins - January 4, 2010 - 5:16 PM

In the late 1980′s, Dan Pink made a terrible mistake: he went to law school. He didn’t fare well, graduating in the bottom 10% of his class. Later he overcame his failure at law and became chief speechwriter for Al Gore, then wrote three books about the workplace (including one best-seller). His fourth book is Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Back in July 2009, Pink gave a TED Talk covering much of the ground that would later become Drive. It’s an interesting talk because it presents scientific evidence that the way we are typically motivated in the workplace (with “extrinsic motivators” like bonuses) simply doesn’t work. Or, to be more precise, it often doesn’t work for knowledge workers — it works all right in certain kinds of work (like hammering widgets in a factory), but many of you reading this blog don’t work in a factory.

Discussed: The Candle Problem, research on rewards and motivation, contingent motivators (eg, get money if you work faster) sometimes work but often don’t (or do harm), carrots and sticks, business vs. science, how certain kinds of left-brained work can be outsourced or automated (and extrinsic rewards work there) but right-brained work is harder to work with, science and “true facts,” and a bunch more evidence.

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Comments (12)

  1. This is absolutely brilliant, as a re many TED talks. For a much better conversation on this, go to TED.com and check out the insight possible in a comment section. No hard feelings flossers, but the trivia genre can’t hold a candle to technology, entertainment, or design.

    posted by Rob on 1-4-2010 at 7:06 pm

  2. I love all these TED talks, just truly remarkable, forward thinking.

    posted by Drew on 1-4-2010 at 8:24 pm

  3. Rob, are you calling us trivial?

    posted by Jen Sweeney on 1-4-2010 at 8:56 pm

  4. Totally agree. Money is nice but not everything. Think the list should also include having a sense of being valued.

    posted by liz on 1-4-2010 at 9:17 pm

  5. I heard this reported on NPR this weekend, great stuff.

    posted by Johnny Cat on 1-4-2010 at 10:28 pm

  6. Could not disagree more. Encarta vs. Wikipedia? Is he kidding? Try the ACCURACY of encarta vs. wikipedia. Intrinsic motivators work for things that the INDIVIDUAL wants, not the group. This works great for creating the Han Solo wiki page, but what about building bridges, disimpacting an elderly patient in the emergency room or any other NECESSARY but less glamourous job?

    posted by Steve on 1-5-2010 at 12:35 pm

  7. Steve, he’s not talking about strict service jobs or jobs where things have to be followed line by line. He’s talking about the management of business and creativity people can come up with when they’re not stuffed in the hypothetical box known as middle management and cube land.

    Re Captcha: economic accrued

    posted by tinkerschnitzel on 1-5-2010 at 2:29 pm

  8. Steve – as tinkerschnitzel said, this is about knowledge workers, as stated clearly in the post above. People who build bridges apparently do respond reasonably well to extrinsic rewards, at least according to Pink.

    If you want to debate the accuracy of Wikipedia, you’re going to have to discuss that elsewhere, I’m not biting. :)

    posted by Chris Higgins on 1-5-2010 at 2:31 pm

  9. Ahem, I work in a factory, and have been a _flosser since almost the beginning!! Circumstances (much like grades in school) aren’t always indicative of intelligence, and certainly not indicative of interests or hobbies.

    posted by RIchard Y on 1-5-2010 at 9:43 pm

  10. misleading preface. dude went to yale law.

    posted by pithy pat on 1-6-2010 at 2:35 am

  11. all good and inspiring info, but most of us are worker bees or sheep that just follow the shepherd. How would we apply this to daily life at the slave shop?

    posted by codsWallop on 1-6-2010 at 4:00 am

  12. Richard – I didn’t mean to suggest that factory work is incompatible with being a mental_floss reader. All I said was that “many of you reading this blog don’t work on a factory,” which I believe to be true based on our readership demographics. Factory work is fine, no disparagement or insult implied.

    codSwallop – well, giving your boss this guy’s book might be a first step!

    posted by Chris Higgins on 1-6-2010 at 2:07 pm

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