Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Paperback – April 5, 2011

Terrific Insights - Thought Provoking

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R Scheese

June 14, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Just finished Daniel Pink's research summary on motivation. Terrific insights and a thought provoking read. A big fan of his work, Daniel Pink seems to find topics where the science and research has outpaced business and society. He builds a compelling case for a concept from the academic research findings and weaves in a few real world examples to create an engaging challenge. Drive takes on the concept of motivation. Pink challenges us as leaders educators, parents,etc. to upgrade from a command & control, "carrot & stick" Motivation 2.0 world to create a Motivation 3.0 environment which fosters an individual's autonomy, mastery and purpose. Drive is about helping the inividual achieve their full potential and is a well crafted book that will be a re-read again and again. I highly recommend checking this one out.

6 people found this helpful

Informative but sometimes repetitive

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CarlosSays

January 17, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The meat of this book starts right before the midpoint. The author gives lots of data to back-up his theory and then goes on to repeat it in a few different ways. Once you get to the fundamentals applications, some of the ideas seem great in theory but require a huge shift in your paradigm from the past. Also, many of the examples are really feasible to all businesses so if you're looking to "explode" your business carefully evaluate the suggestions against your staff, product, resources, etc. Ironically, many of the examples cited are multimillion dollar companies but I could see where a small start-up would have difficulty implementing these suggestions.

Overall, good insight into what drives people to be successful but take the suggestions and apply them accordingly.

12 people found this helpful

A must read for managers of all levels

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February 6, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is one of the most insightful, concise, and useful guides that I have read in the past five years.

Dan Pink points out that there has been a body of rigorous, scientific work that has accumulated over the past 50+ years that identify motivators for creative jobs. They are: (1) Autonomy, people want to have control over their work, (2) Mastery, people want to get better at what they do, and (3) Purpose, people want to be part of something that is bigger than they are.

The author points out that traditional motivators, e.g., pay, titles, etc., work well for some areas of work such as highly repetitive, low creativity endeavors, but for creative jobs money (at some level) becomes a disincentive to innovation.

The beyond a certain level is an important caveat. There are two counters to this. One is workers need to be compensated at a baseline level that allows them to live comfortably. The second is that people are endowed with an innate sense of fairness, and even creative people will baulk at being recompensed at a rate that they feel is unfair.

I've given copies of this book to all of my direct reports and have incorporated the reward framework into my organizations.

The book is spot on. The points about non-monetary compensation ring true in my own experience, but Pink's data and explanation have guided me in being more effective in applying the concepts broadly.

On the autonomy side, I have pushed more resources to my supporting managers, and I have encouraged them to further encourage autonomy with their direct reports. Additionally, we have encouraged inter-organization moves for those that feel affinity towards other work areas.

For mastery, we are encouraging and rewarding actions aimed at self-improvement across a broader range of activities and professional areas.

Finally, for purpose, we emphasize the value-added that our employees work has on broader society.

These changes have had a marked, positive impact on morale and the number of personnel volunteering their talents in new and creative areas.

I give this book my highest recommendation.

in service,

Rich

6 people found this helpful

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