Motivation – book review

Drive, The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. Daniel Pink

I love this book, only wish it was available to me 20 years ago when I was a middle manager. I think it was written for me back then; a baby boomer brought up on command and control, carrot and stick. It is probably even more applicable nowadays – now that we baby boomers are in charge and required to ‘motivate’ the apparently unfathomable “y” generation workforce.

The thing that really stuck for me is Pink’s assertion that “There is a gap between what science knows and what business does”. He contends that science proved over 50 years ago that offering a reward, particularly money, does not improve motivation. According to the evidence it has the opposite effect, higher rewards lead to poorer performance – think bankers. So science has proven that rewards don’t work and yet offering incentives, dangling carrots, remains in many organisations the manager’s primary motivational tool. He goes on to argue that we humans are motivated by our sense of purpose, autonomy and mastery – our urge to get better. That is so true for me, now and even back then and yet I still tried to dangle carrots to get things done. Somehow it didn’t feel right back then and now I know why.

This is a great book, the sort that a busy manager could read on a couple of long train journeys. It is well researched, easy to read, not at all academic and for me at least entirely believable. Most importantly I think it is useful in that it might just change a few mind-sets which in turn might just ‘improve things round here’.

While I would strongly recommend reading the book there are several TED Talks by Pink for those in need of an instant fix or to find out more prior to purchase.

Star rating- 5 Stars