motivation puzzle

Dan Pink’s Findings on Motivation

In his presentation, Dan Pink claims that financial benefits do not always contribute to improved results. People are motivated to do well in activities when they have a sense of superiority, intention, and autonomy. Dan Pink backs up his point with a slew of previous studies conducted by scientists. Financial rewards resulted in low results in studies that allowed researchers to identify answers that were not obvious. Participants were found to do best where no financial rewards were present. However, where the approach is easy, financial incentives resulted in higher results than when no reward was present. This is what Pink presents as the puzzle of motivation. In the business world, when organizations want employees to perform better, they normally motivate them through commissions, bonuses, among others. However, from the findings of Pink, such incentives often do not work or do harm.

Mismatch Between Science and Business Practices

It is evident that there is a mismatch between what science says and the practices that businesses do. While rewards work well on some set of tasks, they never work or even cause harm on others. Most of the problems we face are mystified, and thus rewards cannot work in solving them. Pink thus proposes a new operating system that can motivate better performance in the 21st century. Pink proposes mastery, purpose, and autonomy as the key facets of motivation in the 21st century. These aspects are built around intrinsic motivation. Mastery according to Pink is the desire to improve at something that matters. Purpose refers to the desire to participate in something larger than ourselves. Finally, autonomy is the situation where employees are free of external control. In the examples given by the speaker, implementation of these motivation drivers has led to higher productivity, more satisfaction, and lower turnover.