Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Written by Daniel Pink

In his new book, Drive, Daniel Pink writes about how the concept of motivation, as we know it, is all wrong. While the traditional carrot-and-stick approach worked in the 20th century, Pink draws on 40 years of research that it’s the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges in busi­ness and in home life.

In Drive, he reveals the three elements of true motivation:

- Autonomy—the desire to direct our own lives
- Mastery—the urge to get better and better at something that matters
- Purpose—the desire to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

Instead of the basic reward-and-punishment model, Drive shows that high performance and satisfaction stems from the deep human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create, and to improve ourselves and our world.

Pink’s book is a useful guide to understand­ing the values and expectations of 21st century employees. By learning and responding to this in­formation, managers will no doubt get a lot more out of their people.

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