Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Intrinsic Motivation > $ Incentive

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

"There's a mismatch between what science knows and what business does"
stated Dan Pink at his TED presentation, The Surprising Science of Motivation.

Pink explained that intrinsic motivation, autonomy is a much greater opportunity for employees and businesses to innovate and produce.
Some companies, like Google, have taken this idea and actually allotted time for their employees to work on whatever they choose. Google has seen creations like Google News  and Google + develop as a result.

Pink gave another example of when free choice is better than monetary incentive.
In the 1990s, Mircosoft enlisted its engineers and software developers to create an online encyclopedia, Encarta. It flopped.
Few years later, a company offered the opportunity to its employees and experts the chance the develop on online encyclopedia at their own free will for no money. Wikipedia was born. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you it was a huge success.

Pink's economic advice: focus on autonomy, mastery and purpose.
1)20th cent. awards only sometimes works. narrowly.
2) If-Then rewards stunts creativity
3) Rewards/Punishment stinks BUT with unseen intrinsic drive, when we do thing because we want to, then the best results are produced

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