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Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

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The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.

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Riverhead Books
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April 5, 2011
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1594484805
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978-1594484803
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1140L
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Popular Highlights in this book

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The best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table.

Highlighted by 10,025 Kindle readers
Routine, not-so-interesting jobs require direction; nonroutine, more interesting work depends on self-direction.

Highlighted by 6,457 Kindle readers
The essential requirement: Any extrinsic reward should be unexpected and offered only after the task is complete.

Highlighted by 6,301 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Pink makes a convincing case that organizations ignore intrinsic motivation at their peril."
-Scientific American

"Persuasive . . .Harnessing the power of intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic remuneration can be thoroughly satisfying and infinitely more rewarding."
-Miami Herald

"These lessons are worth repeating, and if more companies feel emboldened to follow Mr. Pink's advice, then so much the better."
-Wall Street Journal

"Pink is rapidly acquiring international guru status . . . He is an engaging writer, who challenges and provokes."
-Financial Times

"Pink's ideas deserve a wide hearing. Corporate boards, in fact, could do well by kicking out their pay consultants for an hour and reading Pink's conclusions instead."
-Forbes

"Pink's deft traversal of research at the intersection of psychology and economics make this a worthwhile read-no sticks necessary."
-SEED

"[Pink] continues his engaging exploration of how we work."
-Inc. Magazine

"Pink's a gifted writer who turns even the heaviest scientific study into something digestible-and often amusing-without losing his intellectual punch."
-New York Post

"A worthwhile read. It reminds us that those of us on the right side of the brain are driven furthest and fastest in pursuit of what we love."
-Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Pink's analysis--and new model--of motivation offers tremendous insight into our deepest nature."
-Publishers Weekly

"Important reading...an integral addition to a growing body of literature that argues for a radical shift in how businesses operate."
-Kirkus

"Drive is the rare book that will get you to think and inspire you to act. Pink makes a strong, science-based case for rethinking motivation--and then provides the tools you need to transform your life."
-Dr. Mehmet Oz, co-author of YOU: The Owners Manual

About the Author

Daniel H. Pink is the author of four provocative books -- including the long-running New York Times bestseller, A Whole New Mind, and the #1 New York Time bestseller, Drive. His books have been translated into 33 languages.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION
The Puzzling Puzzles ofHarry Harlow and Edward Deci

In the middle of the last century, two young scientists conductedexperiments that should have changed the world— but did not.Harry F. Harlow was a professor of psychology at the Universityof Wisconsin who, in the 1940s, established one of the world’s firstlaboratories for studying primate behavior. One day in 1949, Harlowand two colleagues gathered eight rhesus monkeys for a two- weekexperiment on learning. The researchers devised a simple mechanicalpuzzle like the one pictured on the next page. Solving it requiredthree steps: pull out the vertical pin, undo the hook, and lift thehinged cover. Pretty easy for you and me, far more challenging for athirteen- pound lab monkey.

Harlow’s puzzle in the starting (left) and solved (right) positions.

The experimenters placed the puzzles in the monkeys’ cages toobserve how they reacted— and to prepare them for tests of theirproblem- solving prowess at the end of the two weeks. But almostimmediately, something strange happened. Unbidden by any outsideurging and unprompted by the experimenters, the monkeys beganplaying with the puzzles with focus, determination, and what lookedlike enjoyment. And in short order, they began figuring out how thecontraptions worked. By the time Harlow tested the monkeys ondays 13 and 14 of the experiment, the primates had become quiteadept. They solved the puzzles frequently and quickly; two- thirds ofthe time they cracked the code in less than sixty seconds.

Now, this was a bit odd. Nobody had taught the monkeys howto remove the pin, slide the hook, and open the cover. Nobody hadrewarded them with food, affection, or even quiet applause whenthey succeeded. And that ran counter to the accepted notions of howprimates— including the bigger- brained, less hairy primates knownas human beings— behaved.

Scientists then knew that two main drives powered behavior. Thefirst was the biological drive. Humans and other animals ate to satetheir hunger, drank to quench their thirst, and copulated to satisfytheir carnal urges. But that wasn’t happening here. “Solution did notlead to food, water, or sex gratification,” Harlow reported.1But the only other known drive also failed to explain the monkeys’peculiar behavior. If biological motivations came from within,this second drive came from without— the rewards and punishmentsthe environment delivered for behaving in certain ways. This wascertainly true for humans, who responded exquisitely to such externalforces. If you promised to raise our pay, we’d work harder. If youheld out the prospect of getting an A on the test, we’d study longer.If you threatened to dock us for showing up late or for incorrectlycompleting a form, we’d arrive on time and tick every box. But thatdidn’t account for the monkeys’ actions either. As Harlow wrote, andyou can almost hear him scratching his head, “The behavior obtainedin this investigation poses some interesting questions for motivationtheory, since significant learning was attained and efficient performancemaintained without resort to special or extrinsic incentives.”What else could it be?

To answer the question, Harlow offered a novel theory— whatamounted to a third drive: “The performance of the task,” he said,“provided intrinsic reward.” The monkeys solved the puzzles simplybecause they found it gratifying to solve puzzles. They enjoyed it.The joy of the task was its own reward.

If this notion was radical, what happened next only deepened theconfusion and controversy. Perhaps this newly discovered drive—Harlow eventually called it “intrinsic motivation”— was real. Butsurely it was subordinate to the other two drives. If the monkeyswere rewarded— with raisins!— for solving the puzzles, they’d nodoubt perform even better. Yet when Harlow tested that approach,the monkeys actually made more errors and solved the puzzles lessfrequently. “Introduction of food in the present experiment,” Harlowwrote, “served to disrupt performance, a phenomenon not reportedin the literature.”

Now, this was really odd. In scientific terms, it was akin to rollinga steel ball down an inclined plane to measure its velocity—only to watch the ball fl oat into the air instead. It suggested thatour understanding of the gravitational pulls on our behavior wasinadequate— that what we thought were fixed laws had plenty ofloopholes. Harlow emphasized the “strength and persistence” of themonkeys’ drive to complete the puzzles. Then he noted:It would appear that this drive . . . may be as basic and strongas the [other] drives. Furthermore, there is some reason tobelieve that [it] can be as efficient in facilitating learning.2

At the time, however, the prevailing two drives held a tight grip onscientific thinking. So Harlow sounded the alarm. He urged scientiststo “close down large sections of our theoretical junkyard” andoffer fresher, more accurate accounts of human behavior.3 He warnedthat our explanation of why we did what we did was incomplete. Hesaid that to truly understand the human condition, we had to takeaccount of this third drive.

Then he pretty much dropped the whole idea.Rather than battle the establishment and begin offering a morecomplete view of motivation, Harlow abandoned this contentiousline of research and later became famous for studies on the scienceof affection.4 His notion of this third drive bounced around the psychologicalliterature, but it remained on the periphery— of behavioralscience and of our understanding of ourselves. It would be twodecades before another scientist picked up the thread that Harlowhad so provocatively left on that Wisconsin laboratory table.In the summer of 1969, Edward Deci was a Carnegie Mellon Universitypsychology graduate student in search of a dissertation topic.Deci, who had already earned an MBA from Wharton, was intriguedby motivation but suspected that scholars and businesspeople hadmisunderstood it. So, tearing a page from the Harlow playbook, heset out to study the topic with the help of a puzzle.

Deci chose the Soma puzzle cube, a then popular Parker Brothersoffering that, thanks to YouTube, retains something of a cultfollowing today. The puzzle, shown below, consists of seven plasticpieces— six comprising four one- inch cubes, one comprising threeone- inch cubes. Players can assemble the seven pieces into a few millionpossible combinations— from abstract shapes to recognizableobjects.

The seven pieces of the Soma puzzle unassembled (left) and then fashioned into one ofseveral million possible configurations

For the study, Deci divided participants, male and female universitystudents, into an experimental group (what I’ll call GroupA) and a control group (what I’ll call Group B). Each participated inthree one- hour sessions held on consecutive days.

Here’s how the sessions worked: Each participant entered a roomand sat at a table on top of which were the seven Soma puzzle pieces,drawings of three puzzle configurations, and copies of Time, The NewYorker, and Playboy. (Hey, it was 1969.) Deci sat on the opposite endof the table to explain the instructions and to time performance witha stopwatch.

In the first session, members of both groups had to assemble theSoma pieces to replicate the configurations before them. In the secondsession, they did the same thing with different drawings— onlythis time Deci told Group A that they’d be paid $1 (the equivalentof nearly $6 today) for every configuration they successfully reproduced.Group B, meanwhile, got new drawings but no pay. Finally,in the third session, both groups received new drawings and had toreproduce them for no compensation, just as in session one. (See thetable below.)

The twist came midway through each session. After a participanthad assembled the Soma puzzle pieces to match two of the threedrawings, Deci halted the proceedings. He said that he was going togive them a fourth drawing—but to choose the right one, he neededto feed their completion times into a computer. And— this being thelate 1960s, when room- straddling mainframes were the norm anddesktop PCs were still a decade away— that meant he had to leavefor a little while.

On the way out, he said, “I shall be gone only a few minutes, youmay do whatever you like while I’m gone.” But Deci wasn’t reallyplugging numbers into an ancient teletype. Instead, he walked toan adjoining room connected to the experiment room by a one- waywindow. Then, for exactly eight minutes, he watched what peopledid when left alone. Did they continue fiddling with the puzzle,perhaps attempting to reproduce the third drawing? Or did they dosomething else— page through the magazines, check out the centerfold,stare into space, catch a quick nap?

In the first session, not surprisingly, there wasn’t much differencebetween what the Group A and Group B participants did duringthat secretly watched eight- minute free- choice period. Both continuedplaying with the puzzle, on average, for between three and ahalf and four minutes, suggesting they found it at least somewhatinteresting.

On the second day, during which Group A participants were paidfor each successful configuration and Group B participants were not, theunpaid group behaved mostly as they had during the first free- choiceperiod. But the paid group suddenly got really interested in Soma puzzles.On average, the people in Group A spent more than five minutesmessing with the puzzle, perhaps getting a head start on that thirdchallenge or gearing up for the chance to earn some beer money whenDeci returned. This makes intuitive sense, right? It’s consistent withwhat we believe about motivation: Reward me and I’ll work harder.Yet what happened on the third day confirmed Deci’s own suspicionsabout the peculiar workings of motivation— and gently calledinto question a guiding premise of modern life. This time, Deci toldthe participants in Group A that there was only enough money topay them for one day and that this third session would therefore beunpaid. Then things unfolded just as before— two puzzles, followedby Deci’s interruption.

During the ensuing eight- minute free- choice period, the subjectsin the never- been- paid Group B actually played with the puzzlefor a little longer than they had in previous sessions. Maybe theywere becoming ever more engaged; maybe it was just a statisticalquirk. But the subjects in Group A, who previously had been paid,responded differently. They now spent significantly less time playingwith the puzzle— not only about two minutes less than duringtheir paid session, but about a full minute less than in the firstsession when they initially encountered, and obviously enjoyed, thepuzzles.

In an echo of what Harlow discovered two decades earlier, Decirevealed that human motivation seemed to operate by laws that rancounter to what most scientists and citizens believed. From the officeto the playing field, we knew what got people going. Rewards—especially cold, hard cash— intensified interest and enhanced performance.What Deci found, and then confirmed in two additionalstudies he conducted shortly thereafter, was almost the opposite.“When money is used as an external reward for some activity, thesubjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity,” he wrote.5 Rewardscan deliver a short- term boost— just as a jolt of caffeine can keepyou cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off— and,worse, can reduce a person’s longer- term motivation to continue theproject.

Human beings, Deci said, have an “inherent tendency to seekout novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise their capacities,to explore, and to learn.” But this third drive was more fragile thanthe other two; it needed the right environment to survive. “Onewho is interested in developing and enhancing intrinsic motivationin children, employees, students, etc., should not concentrate onexternal- control systems such as monetary rewards,” he wrote in afollow- up paper.6 Thus began what for Deci became a lifelong questto rethink why we do what we do— a pursuit that sometimes puthim at odds with fellow psychologists, got him fired from a businessschool, and challenged the operating assumptions of organizationseverywhere.

“It was controversial,” Deci told me one spring morning fortyyears after the Soma experiments. “Nobody was expecting rewardswould have a negative effect.”

This is a book about motivation. I will show that much of whatwe believe about the subject just isn’t so— and that the insights thatHarlow and Deci began uncovering a few decades ago come muchcloser to the truth. The problem is that most businesses haven’tcaught up to this new understanding of what motivates us. Too manyorganizations— not just companies, but governments and nonprofitsas well— still operate from assumptions about human potential andindividual performance that are outdated, unexamined, and rootedmore in folklore than in science. They continue to pursue practicessuch as short- term incentive plans and pay- for- performance schemesin the face of mounting evidence that such measures usually don’twork and often do harm. Worse, these practices have infiltrated ourschools, where we ply our future workforce with iPods, cash, andpizza coupons to “incentivize” them to learn. Something has gonewrong.

The good news is that the solution stands before us— in thework of a band of behavioral scientists who have carried on the pioneeringefforts of Harlow and Deci and whose quiet work over thelast half- century offers us a more dynamic view of human motivation.For too long, there’s been a mismatch between what scienceknows and what business does. The goal of this book is to repair thatbreach.

Drive has three parts. Part One will look at the fl aws in ourreward- and- punishment system and propose a new way to thinkabout motivation. Chapter 1 will examine how the prevailing viewof motivation is becoming incompatible with many aspects of contemporarybusiness and life. Chapter 2 will reveal the seven reasonswhy carrot- and- stick extrinsic motivators often produce theopposite of what they set out to achieve. (Following that is a shortaddendum, Chapter 2a, that shows the special circumstances whencarrots and sticks actually can be effective.) Chapter 3 will introducewhat I call “Type I” behavior, a way of thinking and an approach tobusiness grounded in the real science of human motivation and poweredby our third drive— our innate need to direct our own lives, tolearn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and ourworld.

Part Two will examine the three elements of Type I behavior andshow how individuals and organizations are using them to improveperformance and deepen satisfaction. Chapter 4 will explore autonomy,our desire to be self- directed. Chapter 5 will look at mastery,our urge to get better and better at what we do. Chapter 6 willexplore purpose, our yearning to be part of something larger thanourselves.

Part Three, the Type I Toolkit, is a comprehensive set of resourcesto help you create settings in which Type I behavior can fl ourish.Here you’ll find everything from dozens of exercises to awakenmotivation in yourself and others, to discussion questions for yourbook club, to a supershort summary of Drive that will help youfake your way through a cocktail party. And while this book ismostly about business, in this section I’ll offer some thoughts abouthow to apply these concepts to education and to our lives outside ofwork.

But before we get down to all that, let’s begin with a thoughtexperiment, one that requires going back in time— to the days whenJohn Major was Britain’s prime minister, Barack Obama was a skinnyyoung law professor, Internet connections were dial- up, and a blackberrywas still just a fruit.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Riverhead Books (April 5, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1594484805
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1594484803
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1140L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #8,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #118 in Motivational Management & Leadership
- #195 in Leadership & Motivation
- #297 in Success Self-Help

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Daniel H. Pink

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Daniel H. Pink is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of seven books -- including his latest, THE POWER OF REGRET: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. His books have sold millions of copies around the world, been translated into forty-two languages, and have won multiple awards. He lives with his family in Washington, DC.

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Aaron Silvers

This impacts you and everyone you impact

Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2010

Verified Purchase

There are some books you read and you simply absorb and move on about your business. These books either impact you profoundly at a subconscious level, and you don't realize the impact until much much later; or, they don't impact you at all. There are other books that seem to reframe your view right away and the more you converse, you find the language of the text seeping into your conversations and thusly reinforce what you've learned every time you employ the wisdom transfered through your readership.

Dan Pink has written three books in a row that have had impact on my perspective. Any regular follower of the blog knows how much I've been influenced by A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future or " The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need ." Those texts highlighted to me where I needed to go next given the headspace I was in when I read them. If there's any big "a-ha" to me from Pink's new book, " Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us ," it's that he's writing about where I am now. Dan Pink is ahead of the future curve, letting people know behind him what's coming up ahead.

When I try to boil down the theme of the book to one central idea, it's that of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivations. He frames this early on in the book in a number of ways. First, by talking about the failures of Arthur Anderson, Enron, Wall Street and our financial institutions, he dispels the notions that focusing on the mushy stuff doesn't affect the bottom line. Clearly, by losing focus on things like greater purpose, ethics, the people we affect, the change we want to see in the world -- losing that kind of focus and, instead, hyper-focusing on performance results (extrinsic motivators) affects material gains, at least in the short-term, but at the expense of losing those material games and wreaking unspeakable havoc on the lives of people far beyond the scope of your perceived impact. Pink highlights a number of changes I didn't know about that are starting to happen -- for instance, in April 2008, Vermont became the first US state to allow a new type of business called an L3C (low-profit limited liability corporation). It operates like a for-profit business but it's primary aim is to offer significant social benefits. -- an interesting alternative to a 503c corporation.

Second, Pink frames the praise of intrinsic motivation by highlighting, with multiple examples, that this isn't new, it's well researched and the evidence holds true in the face of how we think about rewards. He links the notion of how work can translate to play (or vice-versa) to the example of Tom Sawyer getting his friends to pay to paint his fence. This "Sawyer Effect" was researched by behavioral scientists like Harlow (1940s), Maslow (1950s) and Deci (1960s), Lepper and Greene (1970s). There's now seven decades of research on how people are actually motivated, and while you might not have heard of these names, if you're in learning you've no doubt heard of Abraham Maslow. The theme of "the hidden costs of rewards" is recalled with several examples.

To be clear, Pink doesn't admonish rewards or money or anything like that. He's making the case, very convincingly, that there's something else, bigger than the material, that we need to focus on -- that once we've met some very basic survival needs, we're ultimately leading unsatisfying lives unless we're working for something bigger than what's immediately in front of us. By tapping into that greater good, we unlock a lot more contribution, engagement and ultimately rewards of a virtuous cycle. One way to identify this potential, Pink cites fairly early on, is identifying heuristics vs. algorithms. This is critically important and timely. By putting creative people on rote tasks all the time (algorithms), we crush the creative spirit that is capable of innovation. Instead, give our workers big goals and the decision latitude to work with whom they need to accomplish and exceed expectations without a lot of constraint (heuristics), and be amazed by the speed and the totality of the result. There are countless examples of these successes, but while we marvel at the outcome we generally close our eyes to the process (or lack of process) by which those outcomes are achieved.

If you're new to Pink's writing style, let me tell you that this book is a fast read. It's an easy read. It's an important read and it will open you up to some very interesting research and science behind motivation. This impacts you; this impacts how you impact the people you work with and work for.

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David Phillips

The Drive to Thrive

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2010

Verified Purchase

Carrots and sticks are so 20th century. We need to understand the drive to thrive in the 21st century. That's my twitter summary of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink.

Summary
There is a great disconnect between what we practice in business - and I will add, in life - and what science is telling us in the area of motivation. The current model of motivation is carrots or sticks, money or termination. If-then rewards actually extinguish intrinsic motivation and diminish performance, crush creativity, and reduce good behavior. They also motivate people into behavior we do not want to see happen: unethical behavior, additions, and short-term thinking.

While carrots and sticks are not the best motivators, they are not all bad, however. They can be effective for rule-based routine tasks that are not very interesting and do not demand much creative thinking, though their motivation is minimal.

Science, however, shows us that we need to upgrade our operating system to motivation 3.0.

The new OS has three essential elements: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Autonomy "involves behaving with a full sense of volition and choice." Motivation is different from independence. It is not the go-it-alone individualism of the American West. It means acting with a choice, meaning we can be both autonomous and happily interdependent with others. And more importantly, this is a human concept, not a Western one.

Autonomy has a powerful effect on performance. It promotes great conceptual understanding, better grades, enhanced persistence at school and in sporting activities, higher productivity, less burnout, and greater levels of psychological well-being. In addition, autonomous people impact the workplace. A study by Cornell University demonstrated that businesses that offered autonomy grew at four times the rate of non-autonomous businesses and had one-third the turnover.

The opposite of autonomy is control. Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement. Engagement leads to mastery, the desire to get better at something that matters. For the tasks of the 21st century, an inquiring mind and willingness to experiment to find a fresh solution is required. That means the ability to have autonomy over our tasks, techniques, team, and time. This all works to allow people to be engaged in their tasks and to master them.

Autonomous people working toward mastery perform at very high levels. But those who do so in the service of some greater objective can achieve even more. The most deeply motivated people connect their desires to a cause larger than themselves.

Thoughts
I really enjoy the writings of Daniel Pink. He assembles complicated research and makes it accessible to the masses. I appreciate how Pink makes the research in the areas of motivation easy for those who are not scientists to understand. In fact, in Drive, he does a magnificent job.

Much of the background for this book comes from the research of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian psychology professor, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 22. Now at Claremont Graduate University, he is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College. He is noted for his work in the study of happiness and creativity, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. He is the author of many books and over 120 articles or book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology.

I do a lot of church planter assessments and one of the things we look for is intrinsic motivation. This allows us to see what will keep them going when things get tough. It also allows us to determine if money is a primary motivator. Drive provides us with the research behind the importance of this needed tool for church planting. And for ministry in the 21st century as well.

Drive is also a marker for entrepreneurial ministry. And entrepreneurialism in general.

The book is easy to read despite its topic. It makes good use of emerging research. But it's a very practical book as well. At the end of the book, Pink provides a toolkit. In it, he provides strategies for awakening motivation for individuals, parents, educators, and businesses. He provides a great reading list of 15 essential books to encourage and promote a healthy environment for autonomy, mastery, and purpose. He also provides a discussion guide to get the discussion started.

This is a fabulous book, and will be effective for leaders and followers alike. Whether you are a pastor, small group leader, or business person, this will help motivate those you lead and even help you understand yourself better.

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Frank Calberg

What motivates us?

Reviewed in Germany on April 11, 2023

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Takeaways from reading the book:
- Page 23: How a person feels when working on a task, is the strongest and most pervasive motivation driver.
- Page 50: When people set goals for themselves, healthy things usually happen.
- Page 63: When a person can decide herself / himself how she / he wants to do a task, she / he will be more motivated to do the task.
- Page 90: Autonomy improves people's lives. When people are free to do something, they learn better, work better and feel better.
- Page 97: At Georgetown university hospital, many nurses have the freedom to conduct their own research projects. This has changed a number of the hospital's programs and policies.
- Page 198: To help create a culture where self motivation can flourish, make it easy for people to speak up when they identify a problem.

2 people found this helpful

Cliente Amazon

Una buena lectura

Reviewed in Spain on February 8, 2023

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Me ha encantado, un muy buen análisis de los motivadores intrínsecos (autonomía, maestría y propósito) y una justa crítica a los motivadores extrínsecos (palos y zanahorias).

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Maryam

Consigliato!

Reviewed in Italy on January 10, 2023

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Tanti spunti interessanti che hanno reso la lettura molto piacevole

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Uday Reddy

Helps you to know and MANIPULATE your DRIVE!

Reviewed in India on June 15, 2021

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Why this book is eye-opening –
1. It talks about different types of drive.
2. It explains which type of drive is helpful in the present world.
3. It explains the best to compensate employees.
4. It talks about giving praise the correct way.
5. It talks how the ancient methods of rewards and punishments can be harmful.
6. It provides you guidelines on how to effectively motivate yourself and others to achieve ones goals.
The long version -

We all have ‘drive’. It's that hidden feeling within us, which makes us do things which we must do. It is equivalent to motivation, but drive is what gives rise to motivation.

The book was eye-opening, in terms of exploring what drives people and how to manipulate that drive to do better work. The writing style is smooth, there weren't too many studies bombarding me in every chapter, but just enough to prove the point. I took away many great things from this book.

The author classifies drive into 3 different types. He argues that the 2nd category of drive has helped us in the industrial era but clinging onto that type of drive in the present generation, is sure to be a recipe for disaster. He explains what sparked the shift from type-2 drive to type-3 drive. He talks about how we destroy the creativity in children, by offering them rewards, and how an employee's morale gets destroyed due to improper compensation. The book offers great advice on how to compensate employees, how to offer praise the correct way, and how to spark creativity in children by changing the way we encourage them. He talks about how in some instances, rewards can be detrimental.

In the present world, where we are rewarded for absolutely anything, thinking back about what motivates us, that deep hidden voice that pushes us to do what must do, is something that we all must do. The book breaks many myths about motivation and shows you a way use and manipulate your drive to accomplish your goals.

Read the BOOK!

10 people found this helpful

Antonio Orozco

Buenas condiciones

Reviewed in Mexico on March 17, 2020

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El libro llegó muy bien y en buenas condiciones, cabe resaltar que sin algún envoltorio, que puede ser bueno así no se genera tanta basura.

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