Dan Pink was an attorney turned speechwriter for vice-president Al Gore. He is now an author and speaker. His latest book, Drive, is a New York Times Bestseller and his YouTube speech has over a 1.5 million views. He claims "there is a huge gap between what science knows and what business does" and uses bold statements such as the "truth" about what motivates us. Unfortunately, his book falls short of both science and truth.In the first half of the book, he does a great job of presenting his case that extrinsic motivation (i.e. rewards and punishment, carrots and sticks, money) is no longer an effective means of motivating behavior in the modern economy. He provides several classic psychological experiments such as The Candle Problem to build his case. The experiments make for great stories and anecdotal evidence, but does not prove his theory.
There are several theories of motivation and chooses just one. Mr. Pink does a very good job of introducing the reader to the self-determination theory. The theory states that people people are intrinsically motivated by autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Then Mr. Pink rejects the science and creates his own method.
In his book Drive, Mr. Pink introduces his method writing, "I'd like to introduce my own alphabetic way to think about human motivation." Mr. Pink manufactures to new personality types Type X (extrinsic) and Type I (intrinsic). Type I is good; type X is bad. Furthermore, he redefines self-determination theory with three motivators of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. These three new motivators are the thesis of his book, but he provides no science for these new definitions.
As I wrote in my first review of his book, it is well-written, challenges your thinking, but takes a few experiments a little too far. So when you hear Mr. Pink state over and over there is a huge gap between what science knows and what business does, be careful. His “own alphabetic way” is not science.
