DANIEL PINK

Daniel Pink

According to Daniel Pink, there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does in terms of what motivates people. Corporate and institutional thinking is out of sync with scientific findings that prove people are not motivated by extrinsic rewards unless the goals are very narrow and simple. Pink believes that true creativity does not lie in this approach to motivation. True creativity only occurs when activities have intrinsic value to individuals. The outcome must matter in some way. Perhaps people like it, they find the activity interesting or it is part of something deemed to be important.

Previous thinking on motivation was more about a system of reward and punishment. My husband reminded me that there is a long-held belief that the only true motivator is the threat of punishment. He referred to his time as an unwilling draftee into the United States military many decades ago.

Everyone had the same short haircut, wore identical clothes, ate the same food, received the same pay, to mention a few examples of the loss of individuality. Some might view this as a positive experiment in egalitarianism. My husband assured me it was not. There was no carrot offered, or even conceptualized. But there was a stick in the form of a top-down chain-of-command that squelched discontent and propagated the ugliness of totalitarianism. This was not the time or place for my husband to “question authority.” It was well understood that creative thinking was not encouraged; in fact, the opposite was true.

The carrot and stick seems to be an improvement over the military’s no carrot approach. But Pink is correct in asserting that carrot-stick mentality cannot work in the realm of higher thinking. True creativity requires autonomy, and there must be intrinsic value to motivate us to stretch and reach.

As a teacher, I am fortunate to have the opportunity to employ a certain amount of autonomy in my classroom. I can invent and reinvent my approach based on my students’ response to material presented. The students have a sense of satisfaction when they are engaged. This in turn satisfies the teacher. The motivation is reciprocal.

Pink believes that “traditional notions of management are okay if you want compliance. But if you want engagement, self-direction works best.” In terms of education, when the teacher is receptive to what drives the students and the students are afforded some autonomy, higher learning can take place.