Leading with Intrinsic Motivators, a Ted Talk by Dan Pink

Dan Pink, from his Ted Talk:

Traditional management techniques are great for COMPLIANCE. If you want engagement, self-direction works better. Focus on autonomy, mastery, and purpose instead.

For those that lead others, Dan Pink provides a concise summary of how to enable better creative problem solving by enabling intrinsic motivation, as opposed to the traditional focus on extrinsic (external) rewards. Here's a summary of his Ted Talk key takeaways. I highly recommend the 18 minute watch linked at the end of the article.

Laws of Motivational Science

There's a mismatch of what Science knows and what business does. The laws:

1. Standard 20th century motivations work, but only in a narrow band of circumstances

2. "If then rewards" often destroy creativity

3. Secret to high performance isn't rewards and punishment, but that unseen intrinsic drive to do things for their own sake (autonomy, mastery) and because they matter (purpose)

The Candle Problem

In the talk, Dan explains the difference between simple and creative problem solving in the framing of psychologist Karl Duncker's Candle Problem experiment.

Candle Problem Images Source: Dan Pink Ted Talk Presentation Slides

The Scientific Proof

In case you need the scientific proof from multiple studies, Dan supplies some of that too. An excerpt from the Ariely study:

As long as the task involved only mechanical skill, bonuses worked they would be expected: the higher the pay, the better the performance. But once the task called for "even rudimentary cognitive skill," a larger reward "led to poorer performance.†

Continued Learning

A great resource to diver deeper into the full intrinsic motivational stack to achieve things you thought were impossible is Steven Kotler's The Art of Impossible.

† D. ARIELY, U. GNEEZY, G. LOWENSTEIN, & N. MAZAR, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Working Paper No. 05-11, July 2005, Ny Times, 20 Nov. 08