Review: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Daniel Pink's "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" is a 2-part book on challenging the carrot-and-stick operating system (aka model) in enterprises.

The first half of the book is a philosophical and research exploration of the "operating systems" that motivate people in any part of their life. Daniel explores this using the two lenses of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and how each of these are important to any reward system. The second half of the book are techniques, tools and research materials to help the reader in progressing further.

“When institutions—families, schools, businesses, and athletic teams, for example—focus on the short-term and opt for controlling people’s behavior,” they do considerable long-term damage."

Using research studies across the globe, Daniel challenges organisations and leaders to consider that motivation is about purpose, learning, growing, delighting customers, and doing one's best. The specific focus is on how to help people get into "flow" (that state of mind where everything is in sync and life is wonderful) in their life and their work.

"The problem with making an extrinsic reward the only destination that matters is that some people will choose the quickest route there, even if it means taking the low road."

This book does not conclude that extrinsic rewards are not appropriate, but rather that to truly help people achieve flow "Motivation 3.0" it is about elevating the intrinsic factors for each person.

A book worth reading, albeit for me, I would have preferred it was split into 2 different books. Why? I felt that the first half was cut-off too quickly and more exploration of the concepts was required. However, the first half was fantastic and well worth the read.

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