Skip to main content

Daniel Pink – Author of Drive on What Motivates #Cat10

Daniel Pink, author of the recent best selling book Drive, shared a message on motivation; specifically what motivates people.  When people are motivated, they achieve more, do better work, and our more satisfied people.

Daniel then shared what research shows motivates people best:

Money is a motivator – People must be paid fairly.  Once you pay people enough, additional money doesn’t appear to increase motivation. The goal should be to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table.

After you’ve solved the money issue, three things drive motivation.

Autonomy – People want to be engaged in their organization, not by being managed or controlled, but by having a sense of freedom to do their work. They need autonomy over their time, tasks, team and techniques.

Mastery – We all have a desire to get better at stuff.  Instead of annual performance reviews, teams should work together to continually set goals and self-evaluate their results.  People should own their destiny.

Purpose – People need a genuine and honorable purpose they are seeking to attain.  When it’s all said and done, ask yourself, “What’s it all about?”

Daniel encouraged us to Tweet: “Carrots and sticks are so last century. For 21st century work, we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery and purpose.”

BTW, Andy Stanley’s leadership team just went through the Drive book.  That’s good enough encouragement for me.

This is a good reminder of what it takes to lead people well.

Upon which of these do you need to improve in your leadership?

Do you agree with Daniel’s assessment of encouraging motivation?

Related Posts

Ron Edmondson

Author Ron Edmondson

More posts by Ron Edmondson