I was recently introduced via Twitter to Daniel Pink, a thought leader and author of 'Drive'. He encourages us to forget everything we thought we knew about motivating people, he says the secret to high performance and satisfaction is the deep human need to direct our own lives, learn to create new things and do better by ourselves and our world.
He describes the three elements of true motivation as:
- Autonomy - the desire to direct our lives
- Mastery - the urge to get better and better at something that matters
- Purpose - the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.
His book challenges the long-held philosophy of 'carrot & stick' and explores why this approach often does not work. Pink recognises that people need to earn a living, but once past a personal threshold, the 'carrot & stick' can produce precisely the opposite of its intention. He says that they can "transform an interesting task into drudge; turn play into work; send performance, creativity & even upstanding behaviour toppling like dominoes".
Personally, 'carrot & stick' has never done it for me, in fact, autonomy and mastery resonate very strongly.
Which ones resonate with you? Let me know!
I'm about halfway through Drive, haven't learnt anything very new yet but there's still time! Will let you know my thoughts when I finish.
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