Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

By Daniel H. Pink

Book overview

Drive is the fourth non-fiction book by Daniel Pink. The book was published on December 29, 2009 by Riverhead Hardcover. In the text, he argues that human motivation is largely intrinsic, and that the aspects of this motivation can be divided into autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

 He argues against old models of motivation driven by rewards and fear of punishment, dominated by extrinsic factors such as money.

Based on studies done at MIT and other universities, higher pay and bonuses resulted in better performance ONLY if the task consisted of basic, mechanical skills. It worked for problems with a defined set of steps and a single answer. If the task involved cognitive skills, decision-making, creativity, or higher-order thinking, higher pay resulted in lower performance.

As a supervisor, you should pay employees enough that they are not focused on meeting basic needs and feel that they are being paid fairly. If you don’t pay people enough, they won’t be motivated. Pink suggests that you should pay enough “to take the issue of money off the table.”

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us quotes