The surprising truth about what motivates us

[kpete]

Adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, this illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

Oh, and it essentially guts traditional economic thinking — at least when it comes to issues such as “incentives work” (only sometimes, for some tasks) and that we are profit maximizers (not really).

Watch the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=player_embedded

[Deep13]

1. marking for future reference. nt

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. Can you give us the bottom line? -nt

[Greyhound]

3. It is worth the watching. He is pointing out that the BS carrot/stick model is still BS.

$$ as a motivator is only useful for a very limited time for a very limited number of tasks, those requiring only mechanical skills.

For work that requires thought, creativity, innovation you need only provide enough money so that money is not an issue (You don't have to worry about paying the bills), and after that actually becomes a disincentive. People want to be free to do what they want to do and to do it better. That's what motivates real people, autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

[bettyellen]

6. it explains how much we all hate to be micromanaged

[Greyhound]

4. K&R. It is good to finally see this knowledge get some play.

:kick: & R

[Greyhound]

5. Nobody want to talk about this?

I mean I can understand why, after all Israelis committing more atrocities is what's important in day to day life here in America. Politicians and lawyers lying about the Gulf catastrophe will stop the destruction.

But what motivates people to do better and improve their lives, irrelevant.

"Where am I going, and how did I get into this hand-basket?"

[LWolf]

8. I just don't want to watch a video, so

I really can't comment. I don't like video. It's a time waster in comparison to text, so I rarely click on video links.

[patrice]

9. This video incudes a great deal of text from MIT and the web cite for the research source is include

d.

Sheesh! :eyes:

[LWolf]

14. I'd probably click on the source if the link was given.

:D

[Fumesucker]

15. Agreed, I can read about five times as fast as even the most rapid talker..

Watching video feels like wading through molasses, information wise.

[LWolf]

16. I end up with less information.

My brain simply moves on to other things, leaving my attention divided, and I miss some of what's being said.

[hfojvt]

10. the video does not really provide enough detail

it does agree with what I felt out of college. I got a job as a "mathematician" with the USAF. I was GS-7 potential 12. The potential was supposed to be my motivation. They would promote me every year from 7 to 9 to 11 to 12. Or from $8.54 an hour to $10.45 an hour to $12 to $14 an hour. However, the way I saw it, I already had enough money as a GS-7. I was saving $700 of my $1040 take-home pay every month. Not that more money is bad, but the only thing I really wanted to buy with it was "more free time" and there was no option for that. The job was stuck at 50 hours per week, including lunch hour and commuting times. Throw in breakfast, dinner and sleep and for five days of the week there seemed to be only two hours a day for me to actually live.

So giving me more money is useless since I didn't have any time to enjoy that money.

But it's not like the job was creative or required lots of thought, although, annoyingly enough, I did have to learn dbase II.

The video seems to slide past the fact that probably 70-80% of the jobs in this country are the simple type that really require no creativity or mental effort.

[femrap]

11. I'm going to send this

to the last dude that fired me!

I worked on commission for years and it can be very stressful if you let it. I simply made up my mind to provide the best service, knowledge and product to my clients and then the money would fall into place.

I became the #1 salesperson. I actually enjoyed my job because I was doing a good job.

I've read somewhere that $50,000/year (maybe it has gone up a bit considering inflation) is the threshold for happiness. More money than that doesn't really provide more happiness.

But paying someone $8/hour to work retail (standing on one's feet for 8 hours/day) doesn't accomplish anything. I guess Walmart has set the table for all of those looking for jobs.

[patrice]

7. Guess what? "People don't want to be just slower, smaller, bettter smelling horses." Thanks, kpete!

[Greyhound]

12. ..

[jtuck004]

13. Cliff notes version if you don't want to watch the video....

did research on performance motivation with money bonuses

As long as the job used mostly mechanical skills bonuses worked as expected.

Once a task calls for more than rudimentary cognitive skill a larger reward led to poorer performance.

People want

Autonomy - We like to own
Mastery - we like to get better
Purpose - Want a good reason

Money bonuses were shown to decrease performance when applied to people performing tasks that involve any level of rudimentary cognitive skills.

There is a fair amount of research to back that up, he says.
_________________________

For some people it does explain why they would rather work their own small business instead of a higher paying office job, though it may not work as well to explain the behavior of, say, commission salespeople, and perhaps a few other categories. It is comparing people who are used to hourly pay vs salary - same rules may not apply. It would be interesting to see how much "schooling" people who perform mostly mechanical vs cognitive tasks have had and it's effect on them.


I appreciate the link. The presentation of cartoon drawings with the information is novel. I think it's a little too busy for anything more than an overview, but I am going to watch some of their other presentations.

thanks

[Uncle Joe]

17. I like the rapid artistic way in which he does this video.

I believe it works both sides of the brain.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.:thumbsup:

[rucky]

18. But this knowledge would put thousands of middle managers out of work

heh