One of my blog readers – Boaz Fletcher – sent me an awesome video this morning from RSA Animate. It’s 11 minutes long and is a fascinating lecture by Dan Pink about The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. I love the RSA Animate format – an artist animates the talk on a giant whiteboard in real time.

In this case Pink takes on the question of “Does More Money Motivate Higher Performance?” In the first few minutes he shows that while this works for tasks requiring mechanical skill, this does not work for tasks that require even rudimentary cognitive skill. In fact, in these cases there is an negative correlation between greater monetary reward and increased performance. It’s counterintuitive, but the talk illustrates it beautifully with several examples that will appeal to any technology entrepreneur.

There are several deeply insightful points including the notion that we crave autonomy and mastery in addition to simply making a contribution and getting rewarded economically for it. Furthermore, if the “profit motive” gets unmoored from the “purpose motive”, bad things happen.

Ultimately Pink makes a good case that as managers and entrepreneurs, we need to get past the ideology of using carrots and sticks to motivate people. Grab 11 minutes and learn something important today.

http://www.facebook.com/johndmc John McCarthy

Thanks for highlighting this. This was a great distillation of some very important themes.
"Pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table."
http://intensedebate.com/people/BingChou virtuallybing

This is great – thanks for sharing Brad. Especially timely for me as I contemplate a career change.
http://intensedebate.com/profiles/rockya Rocky Agrawal

Pink's essay on the topic is also worth reading. He goes into more depth, with examples, here: http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/features…
http://intensedebate.com/profiles/dpilling Derek Pilling

Incredibly important topic Brad. I've read Pink's book "Drive", which covers this topic in detail in the context of the history of compensation theory. Although the emerging theories covered are not new, they are incredibly poorly adopted. We need a fundamental regime change in how we think about compensation. Carrots and sticks are disrespectful motivators and steal the only motivator that matters; the intrinsic human will to win.
Pingback: Friday links: the rational buyer Abnormal Returns
http://intensedebate.com/profiles/chaevans chaevans

Does anyone have a pointer to the MIT study? I can't find it anywhere.
http://uniqueblogdesigns.com Joshua Mullineaux

I've seen this study before and I think it is surprisingly relevant to investing, start-ups, etc. It makes me think of the debate between Fred Wilson and Ben Horowitz from TechCrunch Disrupt. The debate, if you missed it, was about lean vs. fat start-up funding.

Fred's main point was about the motivation of entrepreneurs and investors being personal wealth while Ben's point was that to fuel truly great ideas sometimes being lean will stifle those ideas.

From the audience's perspective Fred won the debate by a landslide.

Brad, seeing as though you are a believer in the lean start-up model (as am I), how would you rationalize this video/study and the correlation to a lean start-up model?
- http://intensedebate.com/people/bfeld Brad Feld
  
  I’m not sure how I rationalize this to a lean startup model. There’s probably “deeper” stuff at work – some of it philosophical (e.g. “lean” vs. “fat”), some of it simply provocative (e.g. the argument between lean and fat is missing a lot of the point as there is more than one way to build a great company), and – most importantly, motivation varies dramatically (although success seems to correlate with “need for achievement” vs. “need for independence”).
http://blog.botfu.com Kevin Marshall

Pretty cool! Now I wish I could get a poster of the whiteboard that was created during this video!
http://intensedebate.com/profiles/jvaleski Jud

with money… you can buy my time, however, you can't buy my passion and emotional commitment; those things come from other vectors. they're all related though.
Pingback: peHUB » peHUB Second Opinion 5.28.10
http://intensedebate.com/people/ckstevenson ckstevenson

Your reader probably found it via Robert Scoble – http://scobleizer.com/2010/05/27/this-is-why-i-wo…
http://sotirov.com Emil Sotirov

Extremely cool – on the positive, future-looking side.

And extremely depressing – as a lens through which to look back at the last few decades of "show me the money" idiocy. Idiocy that not only pushed sociopaths to top corporate positions, but probably damaged a whole generation (those now in their late 30s and early 40s).

Young people and companies could easily embrace this "new" way of thinking. But they'll have to fight their way through open hostility – from the older folks who would not accept easily the fact that they spent their lives driven (more like manipulated) by the wrong motives and values (or even worse – not really driven at all).
http://intensedebate.com/people/StartupTrekTV StartupTrekTV

All entrepreneurs already know this!
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm Jim Franklin

“Punished by Rewards” is a good read on this topic and covers school and parenting issues as well.
Uri Z

His thesis is very inspiring and highly relevant. However, it seems to me that this framework for "drive" is more informed by corporate culture than sheer compensation design. The sense of purpose, the granting of autonomy and encouragement to pursue mastery need to be emanated from the top-down.

Joshua calls out an interesting point re the apparent friction between the profit-oriented lean start-up and the tenets of Drive. I can relate to both. Finding the optimum balance is the key….
http://www.tuneyfish.com Scott Golembiewski

This goes much deeper beyond employee incentives. It’s proof that real world changing companies will come from passionate leaders, too bad those deeply passionate care so little about money they ever get funded and built beyond just sustaining the founders monetary needs.
http://twitter.com/andyidsinga andy idsinga

Yeah – this is totally awesome stuff. Dan Pink's Ted talk on the same subject is totally worth watching – even just to see Dan give a slightly different version that is very entertaining and enlightening. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.h…
http://intensedebate.com/profiles/thestartupkid thestartupkid

Awesome video! Thanks Brad and Boaz!
itemgarden

http://www.itemgarden.com
Pingback: What really motivates us… | That's The Badger
http://intensedebate.com/profiles/glyphic glyphic

It would be interesting to see if, in an environment where employees have autonomy, mastery, and purpose, adding additional monetary incentives affects performance positively or negatively. As presented in the talk, it seems like they primarily studied either/or situations.
DaveJ

Not totally different than the Two-Factor Theory a.k.a. Motivator-Hygiene (1959). http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/herzberg…

If you recall some work I did for you a few years ago, we found anecdotally that managers see salesforce behavior being strongly tied to compensation – indeed, you have to be very careful of creating perverse incentives, because whatever you're paying for you get more of. Does this mean that the results Pink cites don't apply to sales, or does it mean that sales work falls below the "rudimentary cognitive challenge" threshold?

The RSA animate is fun for a while but I got tired of it about halfway into the video. I found it taxing to process the written and oral language simultaneously, even though they were often similar.
http://www.housingassistanceonline.com Tina

Money is always the lead motivator. Especially in this society. But as managers we need to break our employees away from thinking that way.
Pingback: Purpose! « Just Getting Started
http://www.LiveLoveCoffee.com Stephen

Great video, and my gosh that guy could draw fast. Haha. I believe Google does something similar to this as well. I do not quite remember exactly how it is structured, but I believe employees are allowed something like 10-20 hours a week to work on their own personal projects much like that Australian company allows. Just seeing the progress of Google, I would have to say it is certainly working for them.
Pingback: xbox 360
Pingback: Mallory Duerst
Pingback: penisadvantage
Pingback: edu backlinks
Pingback: get a free ipad
Pingback: best 60 inch led tv
Pingback: cheap backlinks
Pingback: best portable dvd player for car
Pingback: the truth about abs review
Pingback: penis advantage review
Pingback: mike geary truth about abs
Pingback: penisadvantage
Pingback: penisadvantage
Pingback: Kory Volner
Pingback: Deadra Baniaga
Pingback: Joan Gulbraa
Pingback: buy edu backlinks
Pingback: win a free ipad
Pingback: best led tv deals
Pingback: penis advantage review
Pingback: cheap backlinks
Pingback: free xbox
Pingback: kids portable dvd player
Pingback: the truth about six pack abs review
Pingback: does penis advantage work
Pingback: Johnathan Bobson
Pingback: Roxy Goldtooth
Pingback: Dillon Kuhnen
Pingback: Jerrell Honokaupu
Pingback: Chong Spizzirri
Pingback: Emerson Chorney
Pingback: Del Lidtke
Pingback: Kareem Henton
Pingback: Ayesha Obiesie
Pingback: Irvin Canela
Pingback: Thanh Faldyn
Pingback: Kareem Henton
Pingback: Noel Demman
Pingback: Deloras Oderkirk
Pingback: Michal Liukko
Pingback: Kimberlie Bordenkircher
Pingback: Brendon Karwowski
Pingback: Phil Yochem
Pingback: Deloras Oderkirk
Pingback: Alonso Broege
Pingback: Jerold Auter
Pingback: Jamal Shamir
Pingback: Johnnie Konzen
Pingback: Huey Cluff
Pingback: Olen Lichenstein
Pingback: Lindy Gamage
Pingback: Rico Bethel
Pingback: Debora Ohnstad
Pingback: Lucrecia Spoon
Pingback: Emely Cardno
Pingback: Alva Riesinger
Pingback: Carina Decristofaro
Pingback: Florine Tatge
Pingback: Wade Strieter
Pingback: Gretchen Bowers
Pingback: Bethel Martey
Pingback: Ewa Hord
Pingback: Rita Linzan
Pingback: Olene Tisher
Pingback: Miguelina Villafana
Pingback: Fabiola Roquemore
Pingback: Jong Shike
Pingback: Marc Duran
Pingback: Bunny Ovsanik
Pingback: Kerrie Bobbit
Pingback: Oliver Shenton
Pingback: Kareem Freytas
Pingback: Lonnie Lommel
Pingback: Ashley Spinosa
Pingback: Many Gibert
Pingback: Kaye Barufaldi
Pingback: Elliot Artibee
Pingback: Georgeanna Michie
Pingback: Cortez Bedingfield
Pingback: Shelby Orrego
Pingback: Dante Howey
Pingback: Hugh Knepshield
Pingback: Jame Tefera
Pingback: Devon Krenn
Pingback: Franchesca Lathem
Pingback: Cesar Borriello
Pingback: Leonida Streets
Pingback: Allyn Carideo
Pingback: Marianna Stanczak
Pingback: Tena Mega
Pingback: Nohemi Than
Pingback: Marylynn Pernice
Pingback: Eric Losser
Pingback: Renato Bathurst
Pingback: Pete Newbraugh
Pingback: Ariel Gilcrease
Pingback: Rosia Stepanian
Pingback: Melvin Krovious
Pingback: Azucena Verrier
Pingback: Miyoko Demas
Pingback: Olga Kristin
Pingback: Ida Romanski
Pingback: Vallie Morrone
Pingback: Sal Macinnes
Pingback: North Carolina
Pingback: Annelle Nacar
Pingback: Jeff Powless
Pingback: Bobbye Maniaci
Pingback: Bert Agnew
Pingback: Earnestine Riccitelli
Pingback: Dinah Ingargiolo
Pingback: Candra Hempe
Pingback: Tod Lehman
Pingback: Jerrold Hart
Pingback: Ariel Gilcrease
Pingback: Luise Kaspar
Pingback: Carman Parfitt
Pingback: Tarsha Replin
Pingback: Robert Maddaleno
Pingback: Taren Varady
Pingback: Elise Robante
Pingback: Mitch Sleeper
Pingback: Margart Balicki
Pingback: Miles Tomehak
Pingback: Bibi Alterio
Pingback: Pearl Connerty
Pingback: Alene Grandjean
Pingback: Arletta Birk
Pingback: Mireya Croswell
Pingback: Lillian Delcine
Pingback: Ola Chicca
Pingback: Cordie Marinko
Pingback: Pansy Ayaia
Pingback: Dominick Pring
Pingback: Wallace Caiafa
Pingback: Sherice Armijos
Pingback: Corie Onishea
Pingback: Jerrold Frosch
Pingback: Wendell Leben
Pingback: Karon Shroeder
Pingback: Karla Turcott
Pingback: Dede Carlan
Pingback: Antwan Longe
Pingback: http://www.mac.cs.csi.cuny.edu/groups/csc126/wiki/0fe54/Just_what_exactly_Every_one_Should_Learn_about_the_Truth_about_Six_Pack_Abs.html
Pingback: Alejandra Taschler
Pingback: http://mail.motionblur.no/groups/animation/wiki/a0566/Unlock_your_fantastic_tunes_expertise_along_with_the_very_best_conquer_building_application.html
Pingback: Kristie Hazouri
Pingback: http://iiis.ne.jp/groups/1a82f/wiki/7dc38/The_magic_of_creating_as_much_as_get_the_ex_back_again.html
Pingback: Wilmer Zavodny
Pingback: Ginny Prisoc
Pingback: Rod Irmeger
Pingback: Lucio Todora
Pingback: Olin Obanner
Pingback: Guy Cardinas
Pingback: http://xserve.culchethhigh.org.uk/groups/filmlanguage/wiki/e2cd5/The_magic_of_constructing_as_many_as_get_the_ex_again.html
Pingback: Ray Mayr
Pingback: Shara Worsfold
Pingback: Scotty Murach
Pingback: Mitchel Goike
Pingback: Tressie Simuel
Pingback: Edda Pomrenke
Pingback: Daphine Atmore
Pingback: Vernia Kucha
Pingback: Francine Dechambeau
Pingback: Patti Leviston
Pingback: Wesley Gagon
Pingback: Talia Lachowicz
Pingback: Dorine Born
Pingback: Werner Pultorak
Pingback: Linwood Sobon
Pingback: Mervin Milliren
Pingback: Denis Danby
Pingback: Christene Heppner
Pingback: Allene Tietjens
Pingback: Harvey Brannick
Pingback: Kendal Eun
Pingback: Rupert Hinchey
Pingback: Vinnie Boehlke
Pingback: Latrina Kachermeyer
Pingback: Gilma Rookstool
Pingback: Toshiko Engelkemier
Pingback: Zack Courteau
Pingback: Dana Searby
Pingback: Hung Desroberts
Pingback: Penelope Rickie
Pingback: Ursula Carleo
Pingback: Na Sonza
Pingback: Jeffrey Doporto
Pingback: Barbara Dipaolo
Pingback: Jere Jarocki
Pingback: Mammie Ginn
Pingback: Christiane Olmeda
Pingback: Marg Toplistky
Pingback: Astrid Crisafi
Pingback: Babara Spritzer
Pingback: Brock Jestis
Pingback: Lewis Bierbower
Pingback: Lashanda Moradel
Pingback: Samual Guariglio
Pingback: Riley Garnick
Pingback: Valarie Belflower
Pingback: Laurence Morneau
Pingback: Tanya Boughton
Pingback: Jerrod Vaudreuil
Pingback: Jimmie Iacovone
Pingback: Ariel Simmions
Pingback: Rosendo Debey
Pingback: Kenda Klimesh

Does More Money Motivate Higher Performance?

Popular Tags

Categories