Motivation 3.0

There's much to commend in Dan Pink's latest offering, Drive.

In the book, Pink argues that there is a fundamental disconnect in the way people are motivated in the modern world. Primitive societies were driven by the desire for sheer survival (Motivation 1.0), while more complex societies had to rely on systems of rewards and punishments to shape behavior and encourage peaceful and productive coexistence (Motivation 2.0). In today's world, however, people are best motivated not by such external factors but from within; that is, by some intrinsic motivation (Motivation 3.0). Yet we persist in trying to motivate people with carrots and sticks, a tack which often results in the opposite of the behavior we hope to encourage.

This is the book's purported "surprising truth about what motivates us", and it is indeed surprising because what seems so intuitive and obvious is hardly the norm by which many live today.

Based on research from the frontiers of psychology, illustrated with real-world examples of unconventional (yet effective) business practices, and conveyed in a straightforward and engaging manner, Drive is anything but a series of platitudes concerning intrinsic motivation. Rather, it is a cogent and compelling treatise on the need to reevaluate how we motivate ourselves.