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

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Daniel H. Pink (Author)
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4.4 out of 5 stars 910 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Riverhead Books (April 5, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1594484805
  • ISBN-13: 978-1594484803
  • Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.6 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (910 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 starsBiased and selective presentation of important ideas
By Wally Bock on January 24, 2010
Format: Hardcover
Before plunking down your credit card for a copy of Drive, by Dan Pink, consider making do with just his TED talk. The talk contains the substance of this book without the excess padding.

The book has about 250 pages. One hundred fifty or so of those are for the basic content. It includes the Introduction and Parts I and II (chapters one through six).

The other hundred pages are a "Toolkit." This includes some material that didn't seem to fit anywhere else, a glossary, a recap of Drive, twenty conversation starters (useful at cocktail parties), a reading list, and a fitness plan. That's forty percent of the book. And none of it helps you put what you've read to work.

The core points of the book are covered in the TED talk. You can listen to it in about fifteen minutes or read it in about ten. You won't get the fitness plan or the conversation starters. You will get the essence of Pink's message.

If you're a boss or concerned about leadership, you need to become familiar with that message. The ideas are important. Pink's rendering of them, for good or ill, will define and influence the discussion of motivation in business for quite a while.

He does get the big picture right. He says that people would prefer activities where they can pursue three things.

Autonomy: People want to have control over their work.

Mastery: People want to get better at what they do.

Purpose: People want to be part of something that is bigger than they are.

This matches research that I've done with class members for over twenty-five years. They discuss a time when "it was great to come to work" and then create a description of what those times are like.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsJust as important as "A Whole New Mind"
By Amazon Customer VINE VOICE on November 28, 2009
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
Daniel Pink's new book follows well in the tradition of "A Whole New Mind," as he picks up on a new trend and explains it well. This time it's the apparent paradox of motivation - why do some people like Google pay their staff to regularly work on projects of their own choosing when they could be working hard on what they were hired to do?

Pink shows that there has always been monetary motivation, but that has lost its attractiveness as we've moved from the "top-down" management system to the more heuristic style (workers being free to decide how to do their jobs). He points out that repetitive jobs lend themselves more to traditional rewards, whereas money doesn't seem to motivate innovation.

I used to work for a major corporation (which we'll call "EMC," because that is their name). Pretty much everyone I met had responsibility for something, to the degree that supervisors were enablers - you went to them and told them what to do. Supervisors could (and sometimes did) give you reasons why not, but they weren't about to come into your cubicle and micromanage you. And the wider your responsibility, the harder you worked.

This system was totally unlike anything I'd come across before. Most businesses would act as though their employees couldn't be trusted. And although I was looking behind me nervously, I shone in this environment, and now I realized that's what they wanted from me.

Pink mentions Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (if that's new to you, look it up on Wikipedia), and I think he is right that now that there's a relatively well-paid group of workers, they can ask for something more than basic salary.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsA Real Winner
By John Chancellor TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on November 30, 2009
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
Daniel Pink has written a highly interesting and very informative book on the truth about what motivates us.

He uses a very interesting analogy - comparing motivation to different generations of operating software. Motivation 1.0 the basic operating system for the first few thousand years was based on the primary needs of the human - food, shelter, clothing and reproduction. Eventually we moved to Motivation 2.0 - basically the carrot and the stick - reward and punishment worked fairly well for a time.

But according to Pink and other scientists, reward and punishment no longer work in most situations. We need to move to Motivation 3.0.

Pink goes into great detain about why the carrot and stick motivation does not work. "The traditional `If then' rewards can give us less of what we want. They extinguish intrinsic motivation, diminish performance, crush creativity and crowd out good behavior. The can encourage unethical behavior, create addictions and foster short-term thinking. These are the bugs in our current operating system."

The "if then" reward/punishment system does work under very limited conditions. Pink explores these.

He then introduces the I Type and X Type behavior - named for intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Type I behavior concerns itself less with external rewards and more with doing things for the joy of doing them.

There are three elements to the I Type behavior: Autonomy - we all long to be autonomous - to have control over our lives and destiny. To the extent that we don't have autonomy we feel something missing. The second element is Mastery. We need to learn to master the tasks we are undertaking. The third element is Purpose. We need to "buy in" to why we are doing things.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsGreat info and insight in the book but it's hard ...

Great info and insight in the book but it's hard to read. Very slow beginning, but excellent suggestions at the end.

Published 8 days ago by Todd Watson
5.0 out of 5 starsMind-blowing

Great book.

Compares what we think motivates us, with what really motivates us. Draws a distinction between "management 2. Read more

Published 12 days ago by I Laugh At Fart Jokes
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Love it

Published 15 days ago by Sir Vick
5.0 out of 5 starsEveryone should read it

Great inspiration and very interesting facts. I loved also the form.

Published 18 days ago by veronika danhova
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

It's simply incredible how this concept is not at the forefront of ever business culture shift.

Published 18 days ago by C. Kirk Kornegay
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

I will buy another.

Published 21 days ago by James G Morgan
5.0 out of 5 starsUseful

A couple of co workers suggested this book. I found it to be very useful in parenting and in managing .

Published 22 days ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsIf you are someone that asks "why"? in business ...

If you are someone that asks "why"? in business and life this will throw a monkey wrench into everything you believe to be true about motivation... Read more

Published 26 days ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsThis was terrifying to read knowing that what really motivates us are...

This was terrifying to read knowing that what really motivates us are the shallowest things.

Published 27 days ago by yolanda t.
4.0 out of 5 starsNice

Interesting to know about what is driving us these days. Time is changing, the author beautifully crafted that in the book and the changes in our lives. Read more

Published 28 days ago by M Fazle Taher

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