The Key to Success: Yourself

          Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose. According to Daniel Pink, these are the three factors which can lead to better performance and personal success. However, this conclusion shows that the business world is wrong. Why? If these three factors are truly the keys to motivation in the workplace, then the extremely commonplace belief that money can motivate people to do better is wrong. Multiple studies conducted in different countries have all shown the same thing about human behavior. If given straight forward, “a+b=c” sort of tasks, then a “carrot stick” incentive works extremely well. However, if the task requires creativity or thinking, then the higher paid groups actually perform worse than lower paid groups. Could this relate to school? Why do kids often perform so poorly in school? Simply because these underperforming kids are not motivated by the gleaming “A+” that teachers reward students with, or phased by being punished with an “F”. So…incentive doesn’t always work to make people perform better, it may actually make them perform worse…so, what does improve people’s performance? Self-motivation and self-direction. The most amazing trait that humankind shares is that each and every person is good at something and brings their own ideas to the table. However, if businesses remain in a management mindset, then people cannot be themselves and share what may be a world-changing idea. Atlassian, an Australian software company, has mastered the idea of letting employees direct themselves. Once a quarter, the company allows people to work on absolutely whatever they want to work on for 24 hours, with the only requirement being that they present their results at a meeting the next day. This undiluted autonomy has lead to software fixes and new ideas that would never have come up before. Who knows what might happen in schools if grades were taken off the table, and students were allowed to master their own learning? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has instituted a very interesting idea. For the first year in college, MIT does not grade assignments, in other words, the students do the work or they don’t. This places students in a position of power over themselves and their own learning. Taking the focus off of grades can actually help students to blossom and to reach their full potential. I think that this would help many students including myself. I have always been motivated to do my very best in school. While I have also been extremely motivated to maintain “A’s” in every class, I have had an inner drive that pushes me to be the best I can be. However, I cannot always utilize this inner drive to be the best that I can be because the dark storm cloud of maintaining a 4.0 GPA looms above my head. Self-motivation and self-direction can completely transform business and education.  To quote Dan Pink, “If we start treating people like people, and not assuming that they’re horses…we can actually build organizations and work lives that make us better off. But I also think they have the promise to make the world just a little bit better”. If we let people go to do their own thing and to contribute to the world’s collective knowledge and improvement (like Wikipedia), the world can be truly amazing because of people’s never-thought-of solutions to problems.

     Dan Pink’s presentation style captures the audience like none other. Through the use of RSA Animate, Dan Pink’s message is literally “drawn out” and gives a visual picture that engages the audience, and reinforces what he is speaking about. It helps to clarify the subject, and adds a slight spin of humor to the topic of motivation. I think this is an attention-grabbing idea that I might consider to prove my point further. However, when he speaks he stumbles a lot, which I will attempt to not model.