Credit: Jerry Bauer
The three essential elements of the new approach you’re advocating involve “Autonomy,” “Mastery,” and “Purpose.” How do you define them?
Autonomy is the desire to direct our own lives. Research shows that this is a fundamental human impulse and yet a lot of the ways we structure organizations fights against it. We try to control what people do, how they do it, who they do it with, and how they allocate their time. My view is that if people have autonomy over their time, their tasks, their technique, and their team, they’ll do better work and enjoy it more. It seems to be empirically true—not only in the science but also among some of the companies operating at the edges. They’re getting great results out of relatively modest experiments in autonomy.
Mastery is the desire to get better and better at something that matters. I think this too is a fundamental human impulse. We tend to feel best about ourselves and the work we’re doing when we’re on the road to mastery. And keep in mind, mastery is something you strive for but it’s always just out of reach. The impulse to nonetheless continually reach for it is what drives great artists, athletes, musicians, and—I would argue—great designers, software designers, financiers, engineers, and so on.
As to Purpose, it’s a fundamental human impulse to want to be part of something larger than ourselves. In many ways that idea has been banned from business. People say, “Business isn’t about that!” But I think that’s exactly what good business is fundamentally all about. When people pull all these things together—when they have a measure of autonomy, are moving toward mastery, and doing it for a greater purpose—they end up doing their best work, performing their best, and are at their best in a deeper sense. So, as frustrated as I am by this gap between what business does and what science knows, the great thing about it is that it’s not a choice between being hard-headed and empirical versus doing something that affirms our humanity. The two actually work together. The scientific evidence says be human; affirm your humanity. These are impulses we all have, and if we allow them to flourish, our businesses will not just be better off; we’ll also be better human beings.
Part of Friday series on Motivation. Series one will be quick posts with Daniel Pink, followed by a series of other motivational articles.
What motivates YOU?
Listen to the interview here > Conversation with Daniel Pink. You can download the show to iTunes by clicking the icon on the player.
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[FTC disclosure: Daniel Pinks publisher sent me a copy of the book, Drive and the Q & A materials I am using here as posts]
