Why Forcing Yourself To Work... Never Works
DDaniel Pink
ManagementSmall Business/StartupsMental Health
Transcript
00:00:00about 15 years ago i wrote a book about motivation and it succeeded beyond anything i imagined 159
00:00:06weeks on the new york times bestseller list several million copies in more than 40 languages
00:00:10amazon later named it one of the best leadership books of all time and yet here's the strange
00:00:15thing most of what we do at work in school still ignores the book's central finding too many of
00:00:21us still try to motivate ourselves using outdated ideas and the evidence shows they often backfire
00:00:28so this video isn't a book summary or a chapter-by-chapter recap it's unfinished business
00:00:34i'm going to walk through the seven most important insights from drive the ideas people tell me they
00:00:38found most surprising most useful and most unsettling by the end you'll see how motivation actually works
00:00:45and what you can do differently starting now so let's start with the belief that causes the most
00:00:50damage insight number one carrots and sticks don't work nearly as well as we think we tend to believe
00:00:56that motivation is simple if you reward behavior you get more of it if you punish behavior you get
00:01:01less of it in 50 years of social science especially the work of edward dc and richard ryan says that's
00:01:06true sometimes but not all the time there's a certain kind of motivator we use in organizations and schools
00:01:12social scientists call it a controlling contingent motivator i call it an if then reward as in if you
00:01:18do this then you get that if you hit this target then you get a bonus if you finish your homework then you
00:01:24get dessert in the first two chapters of drive i review decades of research that distills to a simple
00:01:30conclusion if then rewards work well for simple tasks with short time horizons but they work far less
00:01:38well for complex creative tasks with long time horizons to see why this fails so often there's a simple
00:01:44experiment that makes it obvious imagine you're sitting at a table in front of you are a candle a
00:01:49box of tax and a book of matches your task is to attach the candle to the wall so that the wax doesn't
00:01:56drip onto the table now most people try to attack the candle directly to the wall that doesn't work or
00:02:01they try melting the candle to the wall that doesn't work either eventually after lots of frustration
00:02:07they have an insight empty the tack box tack the box to the wall use it as a platform for the candle
00:02:14the key is seeing the box not just as a container but as part of the solution now here's the kicker
00:02:20when psychologist sam gluxberg ran this experiment back in the 1960s and offered cash rewards for the
00:02:25fastest solution the incentivize group took three and a half minutes longer to solve the problem than the
00:02:32group with no reward at all let that sink in the reward didn't sharpen thinking it dulled it the reward
00:02:39didn't accelerate performance it slowed it that counter-intuitive finding launches the entire argument of
00:02:47drive so here's a simple takeaway use if then rewards for straightforward mechanical tasks with easy
00:02:53outcomes in a short timeline but avoid them for complex creative tasks and once you see that the bigger
00:02:59question becomes this what actually drives us insight number two human beings have three drives not one
00:03:06one reason we get motivation so wrong is that we oversimplify human nature we treat people as if
00:03:13they're one-dimensional or maybe two-dimensional but human beings are three-dimensional we have three
00:03:19drives first we have biological drives we eat when we're hungry we drink when we're
00:03:23thirsty we sleep when we're tired extrinsic motivation in many instances we do respond
00:03:29predictably to rewards and punishments pay your kid to take out the trash and she'll probably do it
00:03:35find an employee for showing up late and they'll likely show up on time at least at first but that's
00:03:41not the whole story because we all have a third drive intrinsic motivation edward dc the social
00:03:47scientist i mentioned a moment ago put it like this human beings have an inherent tendency to seek out
00:03:53novelty and challenges to extend and exercise their capacities and to explore and to learn in other
00:04:00words we don't just do things to survive or to get a prize we do things because we like doing them
00:04:07because they're inherently fulfilling because they're the right thing to do because they connect us with
00:04:12others the reward is the activity itself the learning the progress the sense of purpose this third drive
00:04:18isn't a bonus it's a core part of who we are so another takeaway find your third drive by writing down
00:04:25three things you do for free maybe it's create art or work with kids or build a business doesn't matter
00:04:32list them and that's a window into what really motivates you now this doesn't mean rewards don't
00:04:37matter they do just differently than we think insight number three rewards still matter just not the way
00:04:44we use them let me be very clear about something drive is not an argument against rewards human beings
00:04:51like rewards you like rewards i like rewards this is an argument for using rewards based on science not
00:04:59intuition because not all rewards are created equal start with the basic truth on the job people need
00:05:06to be paid and paid fairly that's a baseline condition for motivation if people are underpaid
00:05:12or treated unfairly motivation collapses and let's be honest a lot of people today aren't being paid
00:05:18what they deserve baseline rewards are necessary but they're not sufficient problems arise when the rewards
00:05:25become the reason for doing the work to see why consider a now classic experiment led by stanford
00:05:31psychologist mark leper he studied preschoolers who loved to draw and he divided them into three groups
00:05:37the first was the expected reward group these kids were told ahead of time if you draw then you'll get
00:05:43an award the second was the unexpected reward group they were simply asked to draw and only after they
00:05:50finished did they receive an award the third was the no reward group they drew with no promise and no prize
00:05:56two weeks later during free play the researchers watched what happened the unexpected reward and the
00:06:02no reward kids kept drawing just as much and with the same enjoyment as before but the expected reward kids
00:06:10the one who'd drawn in order to get the prize lost interest they spent far less time drawing only one
00:06:19thing killed motivation knowing in advance there was a reward when drawing became something they did to
00:06:26get something else it stopped being something they did because they loved it now this can get tricky in
00:06:31the workplace there's no perfect recipe for compensation and insight three doesn't mean that everybody should be
00:06:37paid the same some people contribute more and therefore should be paid more and this doesn't mean that
00:06:42variable compensation is bad but it must be simple hard to gain and connected to outcomes that matter
00:06:48when rewards become overly complex or complicated they stop motivating and start distorting behavior
00:06:53now let's move to what works better insight number four autonomy is the starting point of motivation
00:06:59once people are paid fairly something else matters even more autonomy autonomy is the ability to have some
00:07:06control over one's life and work and this isn't some fluffy feel-good concept research shows that
00:07:12organizations offering greater autonomy often outperform control oriented firms sometimes dramatically
00:07:19autonomy doesn't mean isolation it doesn't mean anarchy maybe the best way to understand autonomy
00:07:24is to think about its opposite control human beings have only two reactions to control they comply or they
00:07:32defy but we don't want pure compliance at work or at school and we don't want defiance either we want
00:07:39engagement and the way that people engage the way that you engage is by getting there under your own steam
00:07:47one of the most underlined sections of the book is the part where i break autonomy into four components
00:07:53the four t's task what you do time when you do it technique how you do it and team who you do it with
00:08:00give people autonomy over even one of these and motivation clients think about remote work for decades
00:08:07bosses said it wasn't possible that people couldn't handle that much autonomy then covet forced a massive
00:08:14worldwide experiment what happened turned out that people literally hundreds of police of people around
00:08:21the world could handle autonomy just fine autonomy isn't the opposite of accountability for talented
00:08:27people it's the pathway to accountability because control gets compliance autonomy gets commitment
00:08:35here's a takeaway from the book try an autonomy audit rate yourself from one to ten on each of the four t's
00:08:41task time technique and team the lowest score is where your motivation might be leaking autonomy gets
00:08:46people started but something else determines whether they stick with it insight number five mastery is
00:08:51what keeps people going autonomy helps people start mastery is what helps them persist harvard's teresa
00:08:58immobile has found that the single biggest day-to-day motivator on the job is making progress in meaningful
00:09:03work when we move forward when we get better when we see improvement that's inherently motivating but
00:09:09mastery isn't easy it follows three laws that i write about in the book first mastery is a mindset carol
00:09:16dweck's research on growth mindset shows that believing you can improve is what allows improvement to happen
00:09:22second mastery is a pain it involves what one sociologist calls the mundanity of excellence
00:09:29showing up practicing struggling repeating third mastery is an asymptote you can approach it
00:09:38but never fully reach it that's frustrating but it's also what makes mastery compelling as the basketball
00:09:43legend julius irving once said being a professional is doing things you love to do on the days you don't feel
00:09:51like doing them here's a takeaway on mastery at the end of each day take 60 seconds to list three ways
00:09:56you made progress that day no matter how small seeing progress creates momentum and momentum fuels
00:10:02mastery and even progress isn't enough if the work feels meaningless insight number six purpose changes
00:10:09performance autonomy gives direction mastery provides momentum purpose supplies meaning purpose is the sense
00:10:16that what we're doing matters beyond ourselves maybe it helps a teammate or a customer maybe it helps tackle
00:10:22a big problem like climate change or hunger or the erosion of the rule of law and democratic norms
00:10:27purpose doesn't have to be grand just has to be real researchers at harvard business school studied
00:10:32cooks working in the back kitchen of a cafeteria people who never saw the customers eating their food
00:10:37then the researchers installed a simple ipad that allowed the cooks to see the people they were cooking for
00:10:41nothing else changed same pay same hours same recipes but customer satisfaction with the food jumped by 10
00:10:48why because the cooks now understood why they were cooking purpose doesn't make the work easier it makes
00:10:54the work matter and when work matters people do it better another takeaway for you next time you or a
00:11:01colleague are stuck don't ask how to do the task write a report conduct a meeting deal with a supplier ask why
00:11:08you're doing it in the first place performance improves when people connect the work in front of them
00:11:14to the people it serves put all of this together and motivation starts to look very different than
00:11:19we've assumed insight number seven you don't install motivation you create the conditions for it for a
00:11:26long time we've had this backward we've assumed motivation is something that managers teachers and
00:11:31parents apply from the outside but when i spoke with edward dc while writing drive he said something that
00:11:36stuck with me he said we have to get past the idea that motivation is something we do to people and
00:11:42instead understand it's something that people do for themselves so here's the real formula pay people
00:11:49well give them autonomy help them pursue mastery connect their work to a purpose carrots and sticks are tools
00:11:56autonomy mastery mastery and purpose our needs ignore them and motivation withers support them
00:12:04and motivation shows up on its own which brings us to the real takeaway let me bring this home the
00:12:10argument in drive isn't just that carrots and sticks are flawed it's that there's a tragic mismatch between
00:12:16what science knows and what organizations do we you and i our fellow human beings are not passive
00:12:23creatures waiting to be prodded we're not donkeys chasing carrots we're born to be autonomous to seek
00:12:29mastery to yearn for purpose so here are three challenges for you to do this week number one remove
00:12:35one if then reward from work that requires real thinking and creativity to increase autonomy for
00:12:41yourself or someone else over one of the four t's and three ask one honest question why does this actually
00:12:49matter here's how i close the book we know the richest experiences in our lives aren't when we're clamoring
00:12:55for validation from others but when we're listening to our own voice doing something that matters doing
00:13:00it well and doing it in the service of a cause larger than ourselves that's not just the promise of
00:13:05it's a better way to work and a better way to live