Dan Pink
- Excerpt from Drive
The desire for intellectual challenge - that is, the urge to master something new and engaging - was the best predictor of productivity. Scientists motivated by this intrinsic desire filed significantly more patents than those whose main motivation was money, even controlling for the amount of effort each group expended.
Dan Pink
- Excerpt from Drive
"Rather than being offered as an 'over-the-counter' salve for boosting performance, goal setting should be prescribed selectively, presented with a warning label, and closely monitored." Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy. But goals imposed by others - sales targets, quarterly returns, standardized test scores, and so on - can sometimes have dangerous side effects.
Dan Pink
- Excerpt from Drive
For routine tasks, which aren't very interesting and don't demand much creative thinking, rewards can provide a small motivational booster shot without the harmful side effects... But when the task called for even rudimentary cognitive skill a large reward led to poorer performance.
