Dan Pink was in town on Jan 27th at the RSA to talk about Drive, The Surprising Truth of What Motivates Us. I was planning to go on the off chance of getting in however I was offered two tickets on the day. In turn I offered the second ticket to my network and was joined by Sean Trainor. It was a good job we had the tickets as the place was completely sold out.
Dan talks about rewards and punishment as reasons why we do, and don’t do stuff, and encourages us to think about other reasons why we do stuff. Because they are interesting, because we like doing them, because we want to get better, to learn. He argues that rewards almost always don’t work.
He concedes that performing a mechanical task can be enhanced through the offer of a carrot, a financial incentive. Dan then goes on to illustrate, through a number of examples, how financial incentives don’t work when offered to complete tasks which require even rudimentary cognitive skills.
The talk includes examples on why punishment doesn’t work, why feedback is important, why making progress is a good motivator, and other interesting things besides.
The talk was enjoyable and developed the discussion Dan started when he spoke at TED in 2009. Yes he is selling his book, and yet this was a soft sell. Dan’s done some interesting homework and presents his findings in a compelling way.
The talk lasts around 33 minutes and I encourage you to download it from here and have a listen.
Sean and I both asked a question. Sean’s is timed at 59.01 on the download and asks about bankers bonuses. The banks say that if they can’t pay out huge bonuses then staff will leave. Does Dan Pink think they will go and is that a bad thing? Dan’s reply is this is not a fact; it’s a hypothesis, so let’s test the hypothesis (cue big round of applause). He believes some bankers won’t walk because they like what they are doing and others won’t walk because they know what a good deal they are on.
If you’re interested, my question is asked at 59.22 and responded to at 1.00.56.