Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation

At the beginning of the twentieth century we saw the rising of the industrial age, were suddenly, with Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie we realized the power of normalization and mass production, and so we passed the entire century learning ways to produce and distribute more goods as cheap as possible. In this age the distinction between managers and workers was very clear, managers would tell their workers exactly what to do, and workers would follow their orders by the book. In this environment monetary incentives worked pretty well, objectives were given to the worker, and if he accomplished his goals he would be rewarded for it, it was simple and it worked.

Today we live in the information age, the mass production processes are so optimized that they only need unqualified workers or no workers at all. In this age most of us is paid to think and to come up with great ideas for new products or services, or to solve some challenging and unpredictable problems, we no longer have managers to tell us exactly what to do, we have to come up with the solutions ourselves. In this kind of environment the old model of incentives does not work any more. In the Maslow's hierarchy of needs most of us already have our basic needs and social needs fulfilled, and are now at the self-actualization or self-esteem hierarchies, and at this hierarchies we are motivated by a challenging work and recognition more that by money.

Dan Pink, the author of the book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko explains this very well at is talk on TED. Watch it and leave a comment with your opinion.



Have a wonderful day,
R.

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