Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

1. Involve people in goal-setting. Would you rather set your own goals or have them foisted upon you? Thought so. Why should those working with you be any different? A considerable body of research shows that individuals are far more engaged when they’re pursuing goals they had a hand in creating. So bring employees into the process. They could surpri

He persuaded managers to configure work assignments so that employees had clear objectives and a way to get quick feedback. And instead of meeting with their charges for once-a-year performance reviews, managers sat down with employees one-on-one six times a year, often for as long as ninety minutes, to discuss their level of engagement and path to

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln BY DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

“The goals of management are usually described in words like ‘efficiency,’ ‘advantage,’ ‘value,’ ‘superiority,’ ‘focus,’ and ‘differentiation.’ Important as these objectives are, they lack the power to rouse human hearts.” Business leaders, he says, “must find ways to infuse mundane business activities with deeper, soul-stirring ideals, such as hon

are noncontingent “now that” rewards, they avoid the seven deadly flaws of most corporate carrots. And because they come from a colleague, not a boss, they carry a different (and perhaps deeper) meaning. You could even say they’re motivating.

The people who remain receive decent pay, and just as important, they have autonomy over technique. Zappos doesn’t monitor its customer service employees’ call times or require them to use scripts. The reps handle calls the way they want. Their job is to serve the customer well; how they do it is up to them.

Hand everyone a blank three-by-five-inch card. Then ask each person to write down his or her one-sentence answer to the following question: “What is our company’s (or organization’s) purpose?”

3. IF YOU USE PERFORMANCE METRICS, MAKE THEM WIDE-RANGING, RELEVANT, AND HARD TO GAME Imagine you’re a product manager and your pay depends largely on reaching a particular sales goal for the next quarter. If you’re smart, or if you’ve got a family to feed, you’re going to try mightily to hit that number. You probably won’t concern yourself much with

First, they provide employees with what I call “Goldilocks tasks”—challenges that are not too hot and not too cold, neither overly difficult nor overly simple.