The Truths Behind Motivation (TED talk #3)

Based off of the TED talk by Dan Pink: The surprising science of motivation

Dan Pink gave an interesting, surprising, convincing TED talk about what motivates humans. He started off with using an activity scenario about a candle, a box of tacks, and a match. The goal is to get the candle to stick to the wall so that no wax drips down (the solution is to take the box that the tacks came in and use that to make the candle stick to the wall).The point of this activity is to asses a person’s ability to think creatively and out of the box. When rewards are added for people who can solve the problem, they actually end up taking longer to solve the problem, which is not what some would expect. Why? Dan Pink’s theory is that there are two types of motivators-internal and external. The external motivators would be the ones such as a reward (money, candy, etc.), but the internal motivators are what people do not take into account for. Some internal motivators include autonomy (urge to direct our own lives), mastery (the desire to get better and better at something that matters), and purpose (the yearning for something larger than ourselves). It is hard to believe Dan Pink, because I (and I am sure most Americans) though before is that rewards were always the way to go. If you want something done, give an incentive for it and then it will be done. Rewards still work, but they only work for certain types of problems. For example, if you offer a reward for solving an equation in math, you would find that the reward would help people solve it faster. But if you wanted to try to get someone to figure out why a formula worked and offered them a reward for it, they would spend more time trying to figure out the answer than someone else offered no reward. Rewards narrow focus (and creativity)and work well for simple, straight-forward tasks. However, because of the changing world, society is experiencing a decline in this type of thinking. Getting into Dan Pink’s other book A Whole New Mind; left-brain (solving straightforward questions) thinking is going to have to move over for right-brain (solving out-of-the-box questions) thinking. Hence, the rewards that worked so well for left-brain thinking are not going to work for this new age of right-brain thinking.

Dan Pink then goes on to explain that instead of rewarding people (which, thanks to science, has been proven to not work), we need to focus on those intrinsic motivators. People want to do stuff because they like it, enjoy doing it, and it brings happiness to them. Something very interesting is that when a person wants to do something they will do it; but as soon as someone says that it is required, they want to do it much less. Having things that someone must do immediately makes the task less appealing. I am not sure exactly why this is, but I think that it is because people want to things that they like, and they do not want to do things that they do not like. Going off of this idea, he details how some companies are starting to implement procedures such as FEDEX days (days where people get the day off of work to create whatever they want) or ROWE days (people can work whenever they want, just as long as they get their work done) where creativity is encouraged and people get to do what they want to do. These types of days end up helping a company much more with willingness, new ideas, and work ethic, mainly because people get to choose what is best for them and make their own decisions. However, many of these suggestions for a better reward system seem very eutopian to me; if work has no structure to it, then would people really get things done? Sure, that is great that during “free time” everyone would work, but in reality, I doubt that that is the case. As more and more buisnesses start to lead off in this direction of work ethic, society will have to see if this method ends up working or not.

After watching this TED talk, I could not help but notice that the school system is set up in this same way of the if then reward. So far it seems to have worked, but the world is changing, and since the world is changing the types of thinking have to change, and since the types of thinking have to change that means the way we motivate that thinking must change too. Maybe if schools started using motivators such as creative days much like the FEDEX days instead of grades, students would start to become more creative, which then means better prepared for the future. Dan Pink also mentions carrots and sticks many times (carrots-reward people with material objects, sticks-punish them with sticks). He has talked about how the carrots do not work, but I wonder if the sticks work. How is punishment as a motivator? If you don’t do this, then this is going to happen to you. I am curious if that affects the left brain or the right brain. Material objects do not work as motivators, but what about the threat of being bad or being punished?

Part of the reason that Dan Pink’s speech was so successful was because of his speaking techniques. He used a slideshow to show important quotes that really make the points of his argument. He spoke with a clear voice, not saying any ums or having any awkward pauses. His entire speech was almost like an analogy to a court case, which was funny and unique. He used humor to make it even more interesting, and by having many outside examples and sources he provided validity to his speech that was very convincing. Throughout his entire speech he made his points clear and concise.

After watching this TED talk there is clearly a mismatch between what society knows and what business does. It is also clear that the types of motivators that we have now are outdated and are not going to work in the future. The world must change its ways in order to be successful in the science of motivation.