A Review of Daniel Pink's Drive

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15 November 2014

Daniel Pink writes business books - short, to the point, with actionable items. Not items you can act on mind you, this is a business book natch. I guess I've studied enough psychology that there was nothing particularly "surprising" about Drive beyond Pink's somewhat jarring register switching between academic and texting vernacular. Yes, people prefer a degree of autonomy to being micromanaged. Yes, motivated people seek mastery of subjects they're involved with. Yes, people don't work very hard if they feel their work has no purpose. Pink, however, misses some key points about what motivates people. A prerequisite for human happiness is feeling one is better off today than yesterday and that they will be still better off tomorrow. Maintaining that upward trend is what drives many people to move from job to job. Pink falsely asserts that companies should start off by paying their employees enough to "take money off the table". What he fails to realize is that, like the proverbial frog being slowly boiled alive, humans quickly become accustomed to their standard of living. The salary that "takes money off the table" today will be inadequate to do so in a year, if not sooner. This is why there are market rates for wages. The salary issue is only truly "taken off the table" when there is nothing else available measurably better.

Still, within the microverse of a single company or organization Pink understands things that all too many managers fail to. Creative thinking has to be it's own reward. When it ceases to be so, when there are external rewards, they sap our focus on the act of creation and refocus it on the external reward. People naturally focus on rewards. When that reward is intrinsic to the task at hand, it can demand our full focus. When the task is but a means to an end, the focus becomes the end and not the task at hand. I have had many a job where I had to head fake myself into ignoring the real reason I did them, for the money. Waiting tables is good exercise, right? And I get to talk to all kinds of interesting people.



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Last change was on 26 November 2014 by Bradley James Wogsland.
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