In his book Drive, Daniel Pink says that when it comes to motivation, there’s a gap between what science knows and what business does. Our current business operating system is built around external, carrot-and-stick motivators — which don’t work and often do more harm than good. We need a system upgrade. And the science shows the way.
This new approach has three essential elements:
- Autonomy: The desire to direct our own lives
- Mastery: The urge to make progress and get better at something that matters
- Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves
According to Pink, humans evolve through three distinct stages of the Human Operating System:
- Motivation 1.0 presumes that humans are biological creatures, struggling to meet basic needs for food, security, and sex. This system is mainly good for survival struggles.
- Motivation 2.0 rests on Theory X of Human Motivation, when management assumes that employees are lazy, tend to avoid work, and best respond to rewards and punishments in their environment.
- Motivation 3.0 rests on Theory Y of Human Motivation, when management begins to understand that when it comes to intellectual work, employees are ambitious and self-motivated and will exercise self-control. This system presumes that humans seek purpose maximization no less than profit maximization…