Drive
The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Book Edition Details
Summary
"Drive (2009) points out that many organizations still follow a “carrot and stick” approach, using external incentives to motivate people. It explains why this is a bad idea and introduces a more effective solution: sparking engagement by catering to the psychology of intrinsic motivation."
Introduction
Picture a group of rhesus monkeys in a laboratory, faced with a simple mechanical puzzle requiring three steps to solve. No one taught them how to do it. No one rewarded them with food when they succeeded. Yet these monkeys worked tirelessly, with focus and determination, to master the challenge simply because they found it engaging. This surprising discovery in 1949 would challenge everything we thought we knew about motivation. For too long, we've operated under the assumption that human beings are driven by two primary forces: our biological needs for survival, and our response to external rewards and punishments. We've built our schools, workplaces, and even our families around this carrot-and-stick approach. But what if there's a third drive, one that's been hiding in plain sight? What if the secret to high performance and satisfaction isn't about external motivators at all, but about something deeper and more fundamental to human nature? This exploration reveals a profound gap between what science knows about motivation and what business actually does. Through compelling research and real-world examples, we'll discover why traditional incentive systems often backfire, and how understanding our true motivational drivers can transform not just our work, but our entire approach to living. The journey ahead will challenge conventional wisdom and offer a blueprint for unleashing human potential in ways that honor both performance and fulfillment.
The Puzzling Discovery: When Rewards Backfire
In the 1970s, psychology graduate student Edward Deci designed an elegant experiment using Soma puzzle cubes. He divided participants into two groups, asking them to solve puzzles over three sessions. During the second session, one group received payment for each puzzle they completed, while the other group worked without financial incentive. The twist came during eight-minute breaks when participants were left alone, secretly observed to see what they would do. Initially, both groups spent similar amounts of time playing with the puzzles during these free periods. But something fascinating happened during the paid session: those receiving money became even more engaged, spending over five minutes exploring the puzzles. This seemed to confirm what everyone believed about motivation. However, the third session revealed a startling truth. When the payment was removed, the previously paid group lost interest dramatically, spending significantly less time with the puzzles than they had originally, and much less than the group that had never been paid. This wasn't an isolated finding. Similar experiments across different contexts consistently showed that external rewards could actually undermine intrinsic motivation. The promise of payment had transformed an enjoyable activity into work, and once that external motivator disappeared, the joy went with it. These discoveries suggested that our fundamental assumptions about human motivation might be flawed, pointing toward a more complex and nuanced understanding of what truly drives us to excel.
Beyond Carrots and Sticks: Three Essential Elements
Microsoft Encarta seemed destined for success. Backed by a powerful corporation, staffed with paid professionals, and marketed with significant resources, this encyclopedia represented everything business school wisdom suggested would triumph. Its competitor seemed laughable by comparison: Wikipedia, created by unpaid volunteers working for free, with no central management or financial incentives. Yet within a few years, Encarta was discontinued while Wikipedia became the world's largest and most popular encyclopedia. This outcome defied conventional economic logic, yet it represents a broader pattern emerging across industries. Open-source software projects, staffed entirely by volunteers, now power major corporate systems. Companies like Mozilla, which created the Firefox browser, operate on principles that prioritize purpose over profit. Meanwhile, traditional businesses struggle with disengaged employees despite sophisticated reward systems. The explanation lies in recognizing that humans possess a third drive beyond survival and external rewards. This drive centers on our innate needs for autonomy, mastery, and purpose. When people can direct their own work, improve their skills at meaningful tasks, and contribute to something larger than themselves, they often outperform those motivated purely by external incentives. The rise of collaborative, purpose-driven organizations isn't an anomaly but a glimpse into the future of work, where understanding and nurturing this third drive becomes essential for both individual fulfillment and organizational success.
Autonomy: The Power of Self-Direction
At Atlassian, an Australian software company, employees participate in "FedEx Days" once a quarter, where they can work on any project they choose for twenty-four hours, then present their results the next day. These bursts of autonomy have generated some of the company's most innovative solutions. The company later expanded this concept to "20 percent time," allowing developers to spend one-fifth of their hours on self-directed projects, leading to significant improvements and innovations that might never have emerged through traditional management. The power of autonomy extends beyond technology companies. At Zappos, customer service representatives aren't given scripts or time limits for calls. Instead, they're trusted to serve customers however they see fit. This approach has resulted in exceptional customer satisfaction ratings and minimal employee turnover in an industry notorious for high attrition rates. When people have control over their task, time, technique, and team, they become more engaged, creative, and committed to excellence. Traditional management assumes that people need to be controlled and monitored to perform well. But this assumption may be fundamentally flawed. Our default setting appears to be curiosity and self-direction, qualities we see in every young child. The challenge isn't motivating people, but creating environments where their natural drive for autonomy can flourish. When we shift from asking "How do I motivate people?" to "How do I create conditions where people motivate themselves?" we unlock extraordinary potential for both individual satisfaction and organizational performance.
Mastery and Purpose: The Path to Fulfillment
Young Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, fleeing war-torn Hungary on what would be the last train across the Danube River, watched the adult world's failures unfold around him and wondered if there might be a better way to live. Decades later, as a psychology professor, he discovered something remarkable through his research on optimal experience. When people were deeply engaged in challenging activities matched to their skills, they entered a state he called "flow" where time seemed to stop and self-consciousness disappeared. This flow state revealed something profound about human nature: we're designed not just to seek pleasure or avoid pain, but to pursue mastery of meaningful challenges. Artists, athletes, and craftspeople described identical experiences of losing themselves in their work, driven not by external rewards but by the intrinsic satisfaction of getting better at something that mattered to them. Companies that created "Goldilocks tasks" neither too easy nor too hard found employees more engaged and productive than those motivated by traditional incentives. But mastery alone isn't enough without purpose. Research following university graduates revealed that those pursuing extrinsic goals like wealth and fame, even when they achieved them, showed no increase in satisfaction and actually experienced higher levels of anxiety and depression. Meanwhile, those pursuing intrinsic purposes helping others, learning, and growing reported higher satisfaction and well-being. The path to fulfillment requires both the challenge of mastery and the meaning that comes from serving something larger than ourselves.
Summary
The revolution in our understanding of motivation reveals a simple yet powerful truth: human beings are not merely sophisticated horses chasing carrots and avoiding sticks. We possess an innate drive for autonomy, mastery, and purpose that, when properly nurtured, leads to higher performance, greater satisfaction, and more meaningful lives. The gap between what science knows and what organizations practice represents both a crisis and an opportunity. Organizations that embrace this understanding by offering employees autonomy over their work, opportunities for mastery, and connection to meaningful purposes consistently outperform those relying solely on external motivators. For individuals, recognizing these drives within ourselves enables us to make choices aligned with our deepest motivations rather than settling for compliance and mediocrity. The future belongs to those who can tap into this third drive, creating environments where people flourish not because they have to, but because they want to, transforming work from mere obligation into a source of energy, growth, and contribution to the world.
By Daniel H. Pink
