Book: Drive, Motivation 3.0, Daniel Pink

I recently read the book Drive, Motivation 3.0 by Daniel Pink, it presents in a clear and well-synthesized way the phases of motivation and its three fundamental elements to achieve better results being truly motivated.

According to Pink, humanity throughout its existence that we know has gone through different phases of the motivation process.

The first phase is Motivation 1.0: What motivated paleolithic man was his survival in his basic needs, shelter, hunger, thirst.

In the second phase we have Motivation 2.0: It’s the model that most companies apply to this day, based on the carrot & stick theory, where on one side we have external rewards, prizes, bonuses, remuneration and when things don’t go well, we have the “stick”, losing the annual bonus, the job, benefits and other corporate punishments.

This model made sense in the 20th century, but doesn’t work in the 21st century. In the past most work was algorithmic in nature, having a series of procedures and rules to be followed to obtain the result, purely focused on execution. In this type of work where little thinking and more execution is done, you receive by production, the more production, the better your remuneration.

In the 21st century we saw that these repetitive jobs could be automated, they no longer needed to be done by humans. Thus, 21st century work ends up being heuristic in nature, where it requires thinking and reflection. We realize that for heuristic work the reward and punishment model doesn’t work. This is the problem we find in some company cultures today.

We then arrive at the third phase where we have Motivation 3.0, which is sustained by three pillars:

Autonomy: Human desire to be in control of one’s own life, freedom of schedule, freedom with whom you will work and freedom of the task performed, being responsible for what you produce. For there to be internal entrepreneurship, autonomy is necessary.

Mastery: Desire to become better at something relevant, it’s having the mindset of constant search for improvement, knowing that your skills are always susceptible to improvements.

Purpose: Desire to do what we do based on something much bigger than ourselves. Believing in what you do and understanding the real reasons that make you get out of bed to go to work.

What motivates you? Do you get out of bed every morning excited because of your extrinsic or intrinsic desires? And how do you motivate your team? We are living in a V.U.C.A period, with high volatility, uncertainties, complexities and ambiguity, an increasingly accelerated world, with constant information and changes, it’s not enough to offer external stimuli to keep a team engaged and motivated. It’s necessary to go beyond, think disruptively to meet each person’s need and demand.