In the video below, Daniel Pink talks through the thesis of his book, "Drive" with an amazingly engaging synchronized illustration from RSAnimate. Before we even get into the actual subject of the presentation, let's first just talk about how captivating the illustration makes this. It's genuinely difficult to look away. The animation really helps to keep the viewer's attention for the entire span of the ten-minute talk. Another great example of the World Changing. Powerpoint is soooo 1994.
With this video and it's corresponding book, Pink addresses the possibility that, "As long as a task involves only mechanical skill, bonuses work as traditionally expected - the higher the pay, the better the performance. But once a task calls for even rudimentary cognitive skill, larger rewards lead to poorer performance."
Whether or not you believe in the validity of those statements you should watch this video.
Pink explains with some enlightening arguments, "Money, is a motivator, but in a slightly strange way. If you don't pay people enough, they won't be motivated. The best use of money as a motivator, is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off of the table. If you pay people enough, then they're not thinking about the money, they're thinking about the work. Once you do that, there are three factors which lead to better performance and personal satisfaction:
- Autonomy
- Mastery
- Purpose"
These three things are the real motivators influencing our productivity. And this fact is becoming more and more evident as we look around the Changing World today. Innovative companies like Google, Apple, and Skype are making use of these motivators to lead their teams to unprecedented heights. Open source projects, like Wikipedia, Linux, and Apache make use of these powerful motivators to create products generated by an army of unpaid-contributors. Check out the video below and when you're done, get the book for your Kindle.
