Daniel Pink’s Drive: As Seen at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2010
Do you ever hear someone say, “I had such a great day! My boss looked over my shoulder all day and corrected every little thing I do. Oh, I loved it.” No, people hate micro-managers. Why? Because it violates all three of the drives that Daniel Pink describes in his newest book (Drive) and in the talk I heard at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Every human has an innate drive for these three things, Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.
Autonomy is the drive to work on our own, to make a difference in the way that we see fit. Different people have different degrees of autonomy that they desire, but we all want the opportunity to make our own decisions. There are 4 areas in which we can give people autonomy over their time, team, task and technique. Daniel used a lot of examples when management chose to release all controls, and the results were outstanding.
Mastery is the drive that is exhibited when someone spends his/her weekend practicing the Oboe, or carving a wooden duck, or taking up painting in retirement. There is no economic benefit, and very little social benefit to be gained. Instead there is a basic human need to be good at something. Nothing is more motivating than the feeling that you are making progress; your work is getting results.
Purpose as a motivator has been talked about in many contexts. Jim Collins discussed it extensively in his book “Built to Last”. It’s clear that employees who feel that they are working for something more significant than putting more dollars in the owner’s pocket are more engaged and committed. Just look at organizations like Tom’s Shoes where event the customers are engaged in building the brand because it’s not (primarily) about making money.
Pink’s talk left me thinking more deeply about how I can celebrate when my team members & clients develop mastery. How can we provide opportunities for team members to know that they are making progress? Leadership and management is so vague and ephemeral that it’s hard to judge or realize when we are becoming more masterful at it. How do we demonstrate or measure it so we can celebrate progress in that area?
It also made me want to go further in helping team members to achieve more autonomy and realize purpose. You can hear a little more at this video from TED.
What are you doing to increase motivation and engagement of your people?
I spent Thursday and Friday of last week at the 
I know that I’m reading a really great book when I keep nodding at each page, “yes, yes, exactly…” The authors are telling me something that I knew intuitively, yet somehow they have given voice to that hunch and even explained it with elegance. That’s exactly the experience I had while reading “

