According to Pink, there’s a ton of scientific evidence suggesting that intrinsic motivators — not rewards and punishments — are the “secret” to stellar performance. But you wouldn’t know it from spending time in a typical organization.
“If you look at the science, there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does,” he says. “What’s alarming here is that our business operating system — think of the set of assumptions and protocols beneath our businesses, how we motivate people, how we apply our human resources — it’s built entirely around these extrinsic motivators, around carrots and sticks.”
Pink suggests that organizations give workers significantly more autonomy. He cites Wikipedia, where people contribute information without compensation, as an extreme example of the kind of environment organizations should create. No economist could have predicted Wikipedia’s success, Pink says, but it shows the power of that inner drive to create and succeed.
