Drive by Dan Pink: Upcoming Posts and Video

Twitter Summary: What most managers think drive people in the work place is wrong. Upcoming posts about Drive by Dan Pink.

 

Background

Last December I had the chance to work on Dan Pink’s social marketing team for his book To Sell Is Human.  I really enjoyed that experience and much of it has shaped how this blog came about.  A number of my early posts were written about his book and I enjoyed his book so much I decided to dig into more of his work.  That’s how I came across his book Drive.

In the book, Dan writes that what most managers think drive people in the work place is wrong.  Most think that money or fear are the primary motivators, but that just isn’t true according to Dan Pink and the research he cites.  Dan says there’s much more to what drives us to work and think and do.

After reading Drive and The E-Myth I felt they were perfect books to contrast against each other.  The E-Myth is all about creating processes for a business while Drive, as you will see in the coming posts, is about allowing more autonomy in the work place.  They seem to speak to the extremes regarding workplace and business management.  Ask yourself, are you or your employees allowed significant autonomy or are you restricted by processes?

After reading these two books, I suggest looking at it like this: the more routine a work load is, the more processes need to be in place while the more creative the work load, the more autonomy is needed.

However, in light of these contrasting ideas, I pose you this question:  can a creative work environment have routine processes or can routine environments have creative autonomy?

I say yes.  Every work environment has some portion of routine and creativity and thus requires processes and autonomy.  While it will obviously be weighted to one side, there will always be some need for both.

I suggest that there should be a serious effort to identify what requires creative autonomy versus processes. One of the worse scenarios is to have a creative environment that has no processes in place or on the other hand, a routine job that leaves no autonomy for the creative aspect.  There must be a balance.

So, with that in mind, I present the upcoming posts for you to enjoy regarding Dan Pink’s book, Drive.

Upcoming Posts

Here is a list of the ideas I found most valuable from the the book.  Future posts will come from these ideas in the coming weeks.  While there is much more to the book, here are some snippets that I felt were worth sharing.

1. Money Does More Harm Than Good
2. Autonomy: Task, Time, Technique, and Team
3. Mastery
4. Purpose

Questions for you: What is a primary motivator for you in your job?  How do you think that impacts the way you work and the way you feel?

Next Weeks Post: Money is not the great motivator that management thinks is it.