The American Society of Association of Executives  (ASAE) selected the Alliance for Innovation
Ambassador Program as a case study presentation at their Great Ideas Conference in Colorado Springs, CO March, 2010.   Alliance Regional Director’s had the opportunity to hear Daniel Pink on his new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.  

Drive is separated into three parts:

Part One - looks at the flaws in common reward-and-punishment systems;
Part Two - looks at three elements of Type I behavior and shows how individuals and organizations are using them to improve performance and increase satisfaction; and
Part Three, is a toolkit to help you create a setting for Type I behaviors to flourish.  

This book is listed in the Alliance for Innovation Discovery Zone reading list.  Below is a brief overview.   

Challenging the Carrot and Stick Approach
Pink begins the book by challenging the common Motivation 2.0 operating system.  Without even recognizing it, many organizations operate under the carrot and stick approach.  This premise presupposes that the way to improve performance, increase productivity, and encourage excellence is to reward the good and punish the bad.  Pink outlines three main glitches that challenge the traditional Motivation 2.0 thinking:
 
1. How We Organize What We Do:  The opensource movement is a great example of this provided by Pink.  This movement is built around intrinsic motivators.  Developers find their “flow” when mastering a software challenge.  Traditional business models are shaped around extrinsic motivators, or profit maximizers, whereas newer entities are focusing on purpose maximizers.   

2. How We Think About What We Do:  Motivation 2.0 assumes that humans are wealth maximizers and that we all will respond well to extrinsic incentives.  Research has challenged this assumption and shows that people are not robots motivated solely by external incentives.  Intrinsic motivators are of great importance.  

3. How We Do What We Do: Motivation 2.0
believes that work is not inherently enjoyable therefore we must coax people with external rewards or punish them.  Many jobs today have become more enjoyable, are requiring more creativity, less routine and self directed.  This contradicts the tenets of traditional thinking.  

It is a reality of life that people must earn a living and their “baseline rewards” must be met. These baseline rewards include salary, contract payments, benefits, and a few perks.  If you don’t meet these baseline rewards you often see little motivation. Pink suggests once you have met the baseline, the carrot and stick approach can reach the opposite of its intended purpose. Dangling the carrot will focus people’s attention on obtaining the reward rather than on attacking the problem and can lead to seven deadly flaws:

1. Extinguish intrinsic motivation
2. Diminish performance
3. Crush creativity
4. Crowd out good behavior
5. Encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior
6. Become Addictive
7. Foster short-term thinking

There are some routine tasks or special circumstances when extrinsic motivators might be effective.  Pink defines these as the “routine tasks, which aren’t very interesting and don’t demand much creative thinking.”  The essential requirements for this circumstance is, “any extrinsic reward should be unexpected and offered only after the task is complete.”  

Instead of “if then” rewards, Pink suggest you look at “now that” rewards.  If tangible rewards are given unexpectedly they are less likely to lead to the seven deadly flaws.  Two additional guidelines were suggested.  First, consider nontangible rewards.  Try praise and positive feedback.  Second, provide useful information on specifics about an effort or strategy.  

Type I and Type X
In Chapter 3, Pink introduces the reader to his philosophy of human motivation.  He calls this Type I and Type X behavior.  

Type X behavior is fueled by extrinsic desires, more about the external rewards to what that activity leads.  Pink introduces his Type I behavior as the Motivation 3.0 operating system that is needed to meet our realities of how we organize, think about, and do what we do.  Type I is more concerned with the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself.  At the center of Type I is a third driver, we do things because they are interesting, we want to learn, and because we want to make a contribution.  Below are a few distinctions of

Type I behaviors:

Type I behavior is made, not born – emerge from circumstance, experience, and context.
Type I’s almost always outperform Type X’s in the long run – “mastery is the source of achievement over the long haul.”
Type I behavior does not disdain money or recognition – once the baseline needs are met money plays a different role for Type I , take the money off the table so they can focus on the work itself.
Type I behavior is a renewable resource – draws on resources that are easily replenished and inflict little damage.
Type I behavior promotes greater physical and mental well-being.

The Three Nutrients for Type I Behavior

Autonomy
“The ultimate freedom for creative groups is the freedom to experiment with new ideas.  Some skeptics insist that innovation is expensive.  In the long run, innovation is cheap.  Mediocrity is expensive-and autonomy can be the antidote.” Tom Kelley, General Manager, IDEO

Pink begins his discussion of autonomy by looking at traditional management thinking and stating that this era calls for a renaissance of self-direction.  Type I behavior emerges when people have autonomy over the Four T’s: Task, Time, Technique, and Team.

• Task: Google is a great example of an organization that gives employees autonomy over task by encouraging their employees to spend 20% of their time working on any project they want.  Google News and Gmail both were birthed during this 20% time.  

• Time: Best Buy follows the ROWE philosophy, results-only work environment.  In this type of environment people do not have schedules.  How, when, and where is in their discretion as long as they get their work done.  

• Technique: Homeshoring is a trend that speaks to the technique nutrient of Type I Behavior.  Instead of requiring employees to report to a large call center, homeshoring routes call to employees’ homes.  This allows companies to pull from a larger talent pool, cuts down commute times, removes physical monitoring, and provides far greater autonomy on how they do their job.  Jet Blue relies on this method and has extremely high customer service ratings.  

• Team: Research shows that self-organized teams are more satisfied than those working in inherited teams.  Whole Foods practices this by allowing department’s employees to make the decision on hiring a person full-time.  

Pink states, “We’re born to be players, not pawns.  We’re meant to be autonomous individuals, not individual automatons.  We’re designed to be Type I.  But outside forces-including the very idea that we need to be managed have conspired to change our default setting and turn us into Type X.”

Mastery
Mastery is the desire to get better at something that matters.  Solving complex problems requires us to move beyond the traditional compliance mentality to one of engagement.  Engagement is essential in today’s environment.  Research shows that more than 50% of employees are not engaged at work and nearly 20% are actively disengaged.  This costing about $300 billion a year in lost productivity.  Engagement is also a powerful force in one’s personal life.  A satisfied life is when you’re in “flow”, as W.H. Auden states, “forgetting themselves in a function.”     

Flow doesn’t guarantee mastery but Pink offers insight into how we can move toward mastery in our personal lives as well as in our organizations:

• Mastery is a Mindset: Type X behavior believes in the entity theory or that intelligence is a finite supply that we cannot increase.  They prefer performance goals and believe that disdain efforts are a sign of weakness.  On the reverse, Type I behavior believes in the incremental theory of intelligence, with effort we can increase or improve.  Type I value learning goals over performance goals and welcome effort. With the incremental theory mastery is inevitable.  

• Mastery is Pain:  Pink states “Becoming ever better at something you care about is not lined with daisies and spanned by a rainbow.” Mastery requires difficult, painful, excruciating, all consuming effort over a long time.  If you are clear about what puts you in flow you will have a clearer picture of what you should devote your time and dedication to master and this will help push you through the rough spots.  

• Mastery is an Asymptote: An asymptote is a straight line that a curve approaches but never quite reaches.  Mastery is an asymptote; we can approach it, we can get really close, but we can never touch it.  

Purpose
“The most deeply motivated people not to mention those who are most productive and satisfied, hitch their desires to a cause larger than themselves.” Daniel Pink   

As we discussed earlier, Motivation 2.0 is centered on profit maximization whereas Motivation 3.0 places equal emphasis on purpose maximization.  This purpose motive is seen in organizations in three ways: goals, words, and policies.  First, the goal is to pursue purpose and use profit as the catalyst not the objective.  

Second, words matter.  Words that humanize what you say and do are important.  Robert B. Reich, former U.S. labor secretary uses the pronoun test to gauge the health of an organization.  He listens for the pronouns employees use, for example are they using “they” or “we”.   

Finally, policies can potentially move purposeful Type I behavior into Type X behavior.  Often people meet the minimal standards established by a policy but do nothing to inject purpose.  Pink suggest a better approach is to enlist the power of autonomy in the service of purpose maximization.  

Final Thoughts
As Pink states, “the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive, our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to live a life of purpose.”  

Local governments are in a position to maximize this notion of Motivation 3.0 simply because we are purpose driven not “profit maximizers.” The two questions we must ask are 1.) Are we as individuals awakening our own motivation; and  2.) Are we as organization leaders fostering a workplace that encourages Type I behavior?  

Over the next few months, we invite you and your organization to explore these concepts with us further and help us build a toolkit of ideas for local governments to apply these concepts.  

Below is a proposed outline:
April – Read the book and take the comprehensive, free online assessment at www.danpink.com/drive.html
May – Join us virtually as we explore Pink’s Nine Strategies for Awakening Your Motivation
July – Join us virtually as we look at Pink’s Nine Ways to Improve Your Organization