To My Magnificent Agents, Staff and Friends:
I began reading a fascinating book this week. It’s title is Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. The author of the book is Daniel H. Pink. His premise is that much of what we think we know about what motivates us is wrong. Conventional wisdom holds people are mainly motivated by the hope of gain or fear of loss; the old carrot and stick philosophy.
According to Pink for much of human history, we’ve configured our organizations and constructed our lives around the carrot and stick’s basic assumption: The way to improve performance, increase productivity, and encourage excellence is to reward the good and punish the bad. The fact is, this does work to a point, but it is certainly less than ennobling. It suggests that human beings aren’t much different from horses – that the way to get us moving in the right direction is by dangling a crunchier carrot or wielding a sharper stick.
With no disrespect meant to horses, humans are much more complex creatures. Pink’s book embraces that point and challenges the presumption that we are fundamentally inert and that, absent external rewards and punishments, we won’t do or accomplish much. “People have other, higher drives,” he writes. And a higher awareness of, and greater focus on these drives can benefit both business managers and individuals.
Extrinsic (external) motivators include things such as money and all the creature comforts associated with it. Pink does not postulate that these are not valid motivators and even necessary. We all have to provide for our basic needs. We have very little capacity to be motivated by anything if we cannot provide our core necessities. But once we achieve the economic baseline needed for our basic level of comfort, “carrots and sticks can achieve precisely the opposite of their intended aims. Mechanisms designed to increase motivation can dampen it. Tactics aimed at boosting creativity can reduce it. Programs designed to promote good deeds can make them disappear. Meanwhile, instead of restraining negative behavior, rewards and punishments can often set it loose – and give rise to cheating, addiction, and dangerously myopic thinking.
Intrinsic motivators are part of our human makeup – our internal drivers. According to Pink, they are what really motivates us once our basic survival needs are met. They are central to the notion of universal human needs. Essentially we all have three innate psychological needs – competence, autonomy, and relatedness. When these needs are satisfied, we’re motivated, productive, and happy. Autonomy means that we operate better when we are empowered as opposed to oppressed. Competence relates to our desire to learn, to master, and to be the best that we can be. Finally, relatedness or relevance refers to our need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.
Again, Pink does not advocate that extrinsic motivators be eliminated. Rather, he believes that they should be balanced with intrinsic motivators. He states, “The problem with making an extrinsic reward the only destination that matters is that some people will chose the quickest route there, even if it means taking the low road.”
Indeed, most of the scandals and misbehavior that have seemed endemic to modern life involve shortcuts. Executives game their quarterly earnings so they can snag a performance bonus. Secondary school counselors doctor student transcripts so their seniors can get into college. Athletes inject themselves with steroids to post better numbers and trigger lucrative performance bonuses.
Contrast that approach with behavior sparked by intrinsic motivation. When the reward is the activity itself – deepening learning, delighting customers, doing one’s best, supporting a cause larger than yourself – there are no shortcuts. The only route to the destination is the high road. In some sense, it’s impossible to act unethically because the person who’s disadvantaged isn’t a competitor but yourself.
Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators play vital roles in our lives, but our sense of wholeness, accomplishment, and meaning is certainly tied more to the degree we allow our intrinsic motivators to be present in, and influence, our day-to-day lives.
“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
– Jack London
Have an AWE-full weekend!
Bill Bacque