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The surprising truth about what motivates us (video)

By Glen Taylor - May 30, 2010

in design.edu | Video

Career satisfaction, life-work balance, the reality of the changing workplace, and understanding personal goals and priorities has been emotionally draining for many as we surface from the economic crisis. Recently we've seen books like What's Next Gen X?, the film Lemonade, 37signals's 4 day work week, Frog's latest issue of design mind, and numerous others explore these issues — and on the flip side — companies large and small are constantly looking at new ways to attract talent, and retain it! In the video above, author Daniel Pink cites 50 years worth of behavioral science research demonstrating that money is only a motivating factor to a point for getting good results. After that people seek autonomy, mastery and purpose to be fully productive and indeed happy. Side note — love the animation that accompanies this talk, originally given at the RSA in London, January 2010. via Joe Gebbia

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Arthur Viente

14 years ago

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Great presentation visually, although the content is nothing new; the big issue is a majority of managers and businesses will never fully understand motivation and how to harness it - too bad as we tend to stifle a tremendous amount of potential.
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lidja

15 years ago

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Nothing new here...these concepts are at the very foundation of the non-profit world. Unfortunately, many non-profits are unable to effectively "take money out of the equation" so those who have the day-to-day joy of working in relative autonomy on creative projects also find themselves earning barely enough to get by. I suppose this is further proof of Pink's hypothesis, though...
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Shalin

15 years ago

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Also, if you haven't been to a D. Pink talk - go to one, you'll enjoy the presentation and probably the content too. I did. :)
--S
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Shalin

15 years ago

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Rewards and affluence are not just 1 dimensional, namely monetary wealth.
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David Shapiro

15 years ago

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If you liked this, check out the Wired article where Daniel Pink and Clay Shirky interview each other. Pink's views on motivation in the workplace and Shirky's thoughts on technology moving from self indulgence to generosity, combine into a thought provoking conversation ranging from Gilligan's Island to Wikipedia.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_pink_shirky/

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Ed Menendez

15 years ago

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Interesting how you get socialist part wrong.

When you mention "self directed" that's exactly the opposite of socialism which is centrally directed. The fact that people aren't self directed in socialist systems is one of the biggest reasons they fail. Freedom from having to worry about money and freedom to master what you want to do is key here.

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