The other day, a friend of mine recommended another TED-Video to me: “Daniel Pink on the surprising science of motivation” (~18 Minutes). I think everybody who’s into management and/or leadership should have seen it.

It’s clearly worth watching, because Daniel is a truly gifted speaker. Still, for the hurried reader, here are the core points as I picked them up. The main theme is

There’s a gap between what science knows and what business does.

What he’s referring to is the “candle problem“: A cognitive performance test dating back to 1945. This test and a range of other examples Daniel quotes clearly shows that “sticks and carrots” (aka incentive plans etc.) actually reduce performance in cognitive tasks.

Incentives do work for mechanical tasks (which were predominant through much of the 20th century). They do not work for cognitive tasks, which dominate the 21st century. That’s the gap Daniel is talking about, and I’d like to add that this especially applies to the business of software

While science knows for more than 60 years that a bonus plan, say, for managers, reduces effectiveness, businesses reach out to higher and higher incentives in the areas where they are known to work least. One could say: They don’t know better. How else to motivate people?

And Daniel has an answer to that question: Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery.

In the video, he goes on to explain purpose – the topic in its entirety is covered in Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

Since then, I keep asking myself: Do you create a sense of purpose in the people you are working with?