Motivation 3.0: the Key to Business Success in the 21st Century

In his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink delves into the science of human motivation.  There's a gap between what science tells us about human motivation, and what business does to harness it.  Our current system, based on carrot and stick rewards and punishments, no longer works, and often does harm by stifling creativity and risk taking.

Primitive man was was driven by biological needs such as hunger and fear. These drives provided the motivators for survival, and they form the basis for what Pink calls "Motivation 1.0".

As human society became more complex, new rules were devised to keep us from bumping into each other.  A new form of motivation evolved to meet our emerging need, that was based on rewards and punishments (carrots and sticks).  Pink calls this "Motivation 2.0".  This is the model that business have run on for millennia. Rewards were in the form of money, titles, perks, and prestige, and sticks were in the form of retribution, firing, demotions, and shame. This model worked well for a very long time, but recently it has started to falter.

One hundred years ago, work consisted of simple, not very interesting tasks  that were repeated over and over again. This is the algorithmic model where you follow a set of established steps down a single path to a defined conclusion.  More recently, work has shifted to a heuristic model.  No algorithm exists for it, and so the worker has to experiment with various possible answers to find a novel solution. Creativity, risk-taking, and thinking outside the box are key components of success in the heuristic model.

Motivation 2.0 is based on the notion that work is dreary and repetitive, and that workers will shirk whenever they are left to their own devices. Clearly this is not true in the case of creative and inspired work. Motivation 2.0 can, in fact, backfire, crushing motivation. Pink describes this as the Seven Deadly Flaws.

The Carrots and Sticks of Motivation 2.0 can:

1. extinguish intrinsic motivation
2. diminish performance
3. crush creativity
4. crowd out good behavior
5. encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior (Enron, Goldman Sachs)
6. become addictive
7. foster short-term thinking (the housing bubble of 2008-09)

Twenty-first century business sensibilities are very different from those of the past. Open source software like the Firefox browser and Linux operating system have taken the world by storm.  Wikipedia, written and edited entirely by anonymous volunteers, is bigger and more successful than anyone could have imagined. Clearly, neither carrots nor sticks are motivating these contributors.

Motivation 3.0 is the new upgrade that the world needs for the smooth functioning of 21st century business.  It acknowledges that modern workers want to learn, create, and better the world.  We want autonomy; to be able to exercise self-direction.  We want to achieve mastery by getting better at what it is that we do.  And we want our work to have a greater purpose so that we can be a part of something that is bigger than us.

Pink, Daniel H. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York: Riverhead Books. 2009.
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