Drive

Call this early operating system Motivation 1.0. It wasn’t especially elegant, nor was it much different from those of rhesus monkeys, giant apes, or many other animals. But it served us nicely. It worked well. Until it didn

key reason: Routine work can be outsourced or automated; artistic, empathic, nonroutine work generally cannot.10

“When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity,

Precisely

large majority of programmers, the researchers discovered, reported that they frequently reached the state of optimal challenge called “

because no algorithm exists for it, you have to experiment with possibilities and devise a novel solution.

Begin with complexity. Behavioral scientists often divide what we do on the job or learn in school into two categories: “algorithmic” and “heuristic.” An algorithmic task is one in which you follow a set of established instructions down a single pathway to one conclusion. That is, there’s an algorithm for solving it. A heuristic task is the opposit

In 1960, MIT management professor Douglas McGregor imported some of Maslow’s ideas to the business world. McGregor challenged the presumption that humans are fundamentally inert—that absent external rewards and punishments, we wouldn’t do much. People have other, higher drives, he said.

will look at mastery, our urge to get better and better at what we do. Chapter 6 will explore purpose, our yearning to be part of something larger than ourselves.