Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

If we want to strengthen our organizations, get beyond our decade of underachievement, and address the inchoate sense that something’s gone wrong in our businesses, our lives, and our world, we need to move from Type X to Type I. (I use these two letters for the “x” in extrinsic and the “i” in intrinsic as well as to pay homage to Douglas McGregor.

The Sawyer Effect had taken hold. Even two weeks later, those alluring prizes—so common in classrooms and cubicles—had turned play into work.

Not always, but a lot of the time, when you are doing a piece for someone else it becomes more “work” than joy. When I work for myself there is the pure joy of creating and I can work through the night and not even know it. On a commissioned piece you have to check yourself—be careful to do what the client wants.

But one reason fair and adequate pay is so essential is that it takes people’s focus off money, which allows them to concentrate on the work itself.

“Careful consideration of reward effects reported in 128 experiments lead to the conclusion that tangible rewards tend to have a substantially negative effect on intrinsic motivation,”

The Motivation 3.0 operating system—the upgrade that’s needed to meet the new realities of how we organize, think about, and do what we do—depends on what I call Type I behavior. Type I behavior is fueled more by intrinsic desires than extrinsic ones. It concerns itself less with the external rewards to which an activity leads and more with the inh

“When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity,” he wrote.5 Rewards can deliver a short-term boost—just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off—and, worse, can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue the project.

Motivation 2.0 has little room for a concept like flow. The Type X operating system doesn’t oppose people taking on optimal challenges on the job, but it suggests that such moments are happy accidents rather than necessary conditions for people to do great work.

1. How much autonomy do you have over your tasks at work—your main responsibilities and what you do in a given day? 2. How much autonomy do you have over your time at work—for instance, when you arrive, when you leave, and how you allocate your hours each day? 3. How much autonomy do you have over your team at work—that is, to what extent are you able