Motivation in the 21st Century

Daniel Pink's newest book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, presents the findings of social science and explores the large gap between theory and practice in most of our organizational and daily life, at work, at school, and in the community. Most of the motivation we experience in these settings is external, carrot-and-stick motivation. Do this and get a nice bonus. Don't do that or you will be fired, failed, or fined.

But that type of external motivation does not work well for the most important parts of life anymore, as not only a large body of empirical evidence shows, but also our daily experience. Designing highly creative new products, learning complex new skills, or building meaningful relationships with loved ones, clients, or your community clearly are incompatible with carrot-and-stick behavior. External motivators actually reduce intrinsic motivation, lower performance, crush creativity, and encourage short-term thinking and unethical behavior (think Enron and AIG).

Pink moves from showing the limited cases where external motivation works well, such as highly routine, boring, rote chores, such as an assembly line to demonstrating how 21st century work, learning, and life now depends more on creative and passionate engagement. He cites Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose as the key elements of intrinsic motivation, along with suggestions about how to re-tool our motivational systems.

Drive reads quickly, provokes thought, and provides some guidelines for improvement.

Voluntary Simplicity and Positive Psychology

Interesting article today in the NYT today on what has been called the Voluntary Simplicity movement. But Will It Make You Happy discusses the psychological benefits of having less, experiencing more, and strengthening social bonds. Buying fewer things, but planning, saving, and anticipating them seems to increase happiness. Purchases connected with leisure, fun, and family, such as sports equipment, backyard and family room supplements, and activities and games to play together increased happiness. And, most of all, shared friends and family experiences, such as vacations and events brought the most happiness. Some studies showed that too much money interefered with enjoying the simply pleasures of life.

Like everything else, there is more to be learned and certainly too little money, though it seems unneccessary to prove it, has also been shown to interfere with happiness. Composing a life is an art.