Drive – The Surprising Truth About Motivation You Won’t Find in This Book

It seems I've typed the name Dan Pink more than my own over the past few months.  His marketing machine has been working overtime and I give a tip 'o the hat to those folks.  Not many books focused on motivation get the amount of attention that his book “Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” is getting.  Mad props to your marketing team!

Starting with his short speech at TED where he outlined the "candle problem" and the effect external (extrinsic) incentives had on creative problem solving, and culminating with the release of this book on December 29, 2009 – the buzz about motivation and how we're all doing it wrong almost reached Michael Jackson proportions on twitter and the blogosphere.

Not wanting to fall into the same trap as the converted and shoot my mouth off about something I hadn’t even read, I gave up responding to tweets about “incentives don’t work” and “rewards kill motivation” and “Dan Pink for President” and decided to wait until the book was released and see what the fuss is about.

I received a pre-release copy from the publisher (thanks guys) and promised not to review it online until January 4, 2010 (today.)  I’m sure it has something to do with the New Year’s Day web discussion held for the first 500 who could show receipts for books (again – respect to his marketing folks.)  

The picture at the right shows the number of things I found interesting enough to tag while reading the book.  It does have some good info.

Two Part Review

Today I’ll give you my impression of the book.  Tomorrow – I’ll spend more time getting into some of what is included, where it makes a lot of sense, where I think it’s wrong and how I think it will hurt business in the short run.  But today – it’s simply recap/impressions info.

Part I – Drive –What’s it all about…

First and foremost this is not a tome.  It isn’t as deep a book as first impressions would convey.  At 242 pages it seems to initially have some heft and depth.  Not true.  Here’s a breakdown of the book based on number of pages – pie-chart-wise:

As you can see – only about 30% of the book is dedicated to the “new theory of motivation.”  The “tool kit” section has the same number of pages.  The tool kit includes some very general applications for individuals, companies, non-profits, teachers, and parents as well as a suggested reading list, some “guru” biographies to check out (I'm not included, frown), a recap of the book (in other words this section of the book…includes content from… the book – somewhat circular), and a two-page glossary of terms.

When you break down the book this way it is obvious that this is more of a really, really big white paper that repackages a lot of other people’s information into a nice, very well-organized, package.  As a practitioner of motivation theory, I probably could have gotten by with just the recap as I’m already familiar with many of the studies and theories Mr. Pink reviews in the book.

It Is Interesting

If you’re looking for a book that will, for once and forever put a nail in the coffin of reward programs (sorry Kohn fan-boys) this isn't it.  While Mr. Pink makes some “good” arguments for pushing intrinsic motivation over extrinsic, he also bends to the real world and outlines some places where rewards can, and should be used.

The net-net of this book is:  

People will work hard and with desire if the work provides them with the autonomy to do the work their way, provides them with the ability to work toward mastery of the task and finally, provides them with a purpose over and above the task itself.  

No one could argue with that point of view.

More Like a Three Musketeers Bar than a Snickers

The book however, is pretty one dimensional – highlighting only those studies and “opinions” that support the idea that world has changed, work has changed and therefore motivation techniques should change.  I liken the book to a Three Musketeers bar, yeah – it is a chocolate bar, but it’s whipped up and full of air providing you with a lot less complexity than say a Snickers would, with all the various flavors and ingredients.  

If you are against incentives – this book will be your bible.  If you believe in incentives you won't find a very balanced discussion.  That's the missing piece.

It is not a definitive treatise on how to drive performance in an organization, and I believe it will have negative effects on business.  I echo the comments made in the Herman Group's HR predictions…

Misunderstanding Dan Pink's new book, "Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us", some employers will abolish their reward programs altogether. This ill-advised shift will cause significant, negative, unintended consequences.

And that leads me to my single biggest concern.  

This book is so well marketed, so well packaged, it is the fast food of human behavior for the HR class and any marketer charged with influencing behavior. Based on the level of critical thinking I’ve seen in a lot of blog posts and tweets about this subject I believe it will cause more problems than it solves in corporate America.

Packaged for Social Networks

This book is packaged for social networks (expect to see more of this!)  Mr. Pink actually provides a “twitter” version of the book, a cocktail party discussion summary, and then recaps of the individual chapters.  It is almost as if this book was designed around Seth Godin’s “idea virus” concept.  Mr. Pink conveniently provides all the appropriate germs for spreading the concepts in this book for maximum contagion.  The photo at right shows you all the bits and pieces that came with my book.  A lot of work went into making sure this book gets read and talked about.  I am again, in awe of his marketing smarts.

Tomorrow – The Real Fun

Tomorrow I’ll post most of my critical review on the book with why I think it is good for business – and why I think it is off the mark.  Stay tuned.  Same Drive Channel – Same Drive Time.