Driven to Distraction? Why not Drive instead?

A couple of weeks back I wrote up a brief book review about DRIVE, Dan Pink's latest book. The review was never published, so I've graciously repurposed it here...

Turns out everything I thought I knew about self-motivation, motivating workers and wringing the most out of staff is, apparently, a load of so-last-century rubbish. Drive takes the way we currently motivate our workforce (and ourselves), combines our malfunctioning value system (business, personal) with computer operating systems – which is a clever and easily relatable analogy – and turns the whole lot on its head.

According to Drive, the common carrot-and-stick methods of incentivizing staff with cash and tangible rewards is old school and no longer in keeping with our true and recently re-discovered value system - the system of being purposely-driven vs. profit-driven. Drive seems to be serendipitously timed as we enter a new decade where we're searching for real answers and better ways of living and doing things that really matter - we can make a difference, with real purpose that gives us satisfaction in our working and personal lives – that’s what drives us, get it?

What makes Pink's book different to other motivational-genre books is that it's not at all preachy. Instead, he makes us question what we've been doing with just enough scientific citations to make his reasoning and questioning credible. If anything though, it's a little light on case studies - he could have afforded some more in-depth research to solidify this volume as a must-read for every CEO and manager.

For me, as a small business owner who has been practicing old-school carrot and stick tricks for 15 years with varied success, I’m looking forward making my current business and staff proverbial guinea pigs for Motivation 3.0, using Drive's toolbox as a guide. Check back with me in 6 months to see how we're doing. But first I need to find out if I'm Type I or Type X. And no wisecracks thanks.

To learn more about the book, visit Pink's site at http://www.danpink.com/drive.

Happy Driving!