Book Review: Drive by Daniel Pink

Book Review: Drive by Daniel Pink

Summary of the book

Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink is a non-fiction book that has much to offer to the readers in terms of human motivation and what the author calls 'the surprising truth' of what motivates us. He has provided a different direction to the old models of motivation that have their bases on rewards and punishment and that consider extrinsic factors such as money to be more important for motivating. The book is provocative and persuasive and presents various ideas that the author believes need to be replaced in the current era with the old ones that are in practice with regard to motivation in various spheres of life.

Pink argues in his book against the use of the traditional 'carrot and stick' approach suggesting it to be an antiqued way of managing people. His assertions are based on decades of scientific research in relation to human motivation. Based on the research that he has done in years, he depicts of the mismatch that he found out between what science knows and what business does. He indicates that carrot and stick method that mainly makes use of reward, usually in the form of money is a practice that is in the current times rendered to be ineffective for the purpose of motivation. Not only this, but it can also bring harmful results and thus there is a need to come up with new models for corporations. These new models need to be of the kind that he states will bring true motivation, bring higher satisfaction among employees and provide better results.

As a replacement to this carrot and stick approach, he suggests of upgrading our thinking to include autonomy (the wish to direct our lives), mastery (the longing to keep improving at things that matter) and purpose (the desire to take steps in service of something that is more than ourselves). These, he believes and asserts to be the three elements of true motivation. He explores them in all aspects to reveal how they work and help motivating in the three important contexts of our lives i.e. work, school and home. He though does not completely rule out the possibility to use 'carrots' such as in situations when the task at hand does not require creativity thereby it does not require deep thinking, neither ...