I never really understood the concept of passion until I found mine — behavioral science. I had never read a book (for fun) in my life until last year; since then I have finished two (which is a big deal for me). Listening to Dan Pink talk about productivity and innovation in 21st century really resonated with my working style. For me, purpose is the most important component, followed by mastery, and then autonomy (purpose > mastery > autonomy). I saw Dan Pinks’ both TED talks and he uses tech companies as examples to prove his point, that intrinsic motivators work better. However, I think in the financial sector, extrinsic motivators would work better (money is what people care about for the most part, so I guess money is their purpose?). I believe the kind of motivators that would work well for the employees depends on the industry and sector. Additionally, as I was listening to the talk, I thought to myself how does Google (because he uses Google as an example) differentiate between its top performers and bottom performers. I did some sleuthing and bonuses was the answer. Based on my findings, I concluded that money finds its way into employee performance evaluation — so eventually money (extrinsic motivator) is the final answer. Then I realized that Google’s bonuses are a “recognition” mechanism not a “motivating” mechanism — there’s a fine difference between the two, but I can’t put my finger on the difference (suggestions welcome).
Anyway, I have rambled enough. Dan Pinks talk has made my head churn. I agree with him because I have witnessed it first hand but I am not sure how the sciences (that Dan talks about) will be implemented in corporations — I guess that is another problem with an inconspicuous answer (just like the candle problem).
vibhavnanda 
You pointed out to an interesting subject, Recognition based vs. Reward based mechanisms. I was wondering if recognition is a new component not included in Dan Pink’s pyramid, i.e. purpose, mastery and autonomy, or if it is a subset of purpose? To me, the latter claim makes more sense.
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My thoughts are that reward is the approach of Do This -> Get That. It’s guaranteed and expected. The worker knows that they are just a horse chasing a carrot.
Recognition is not promised, and not necessarily expected. It feels more like gratitude and appreciation. You aren’t going to miss out on a reward if you take a risk and don’t deliver something you were expected to provide. If anything it fosters a community of taking risks because if you happen to make a big improvement in any area, you are more likely to be appreciated.
Does that make sense?
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I think I get it, but I am confused a little with your response. “You aren’t going to miss out on a reward if you take a risk and don’t deliver something you were expected to provide.” — did you mean aren’t going to miss out on recognition ?
I totally agree that recognition fosters a community of taking risks but I also think reward discourages taking risk — each have their own place in industry though.
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Interesting thoughts. I never thought that money could be a purpose but your post challenged me to think about it. Maybe it is difficult to separate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and human being in real life does not deal with their motivation in such a dichotomy. I could see that money could be used to fulfill many intrinsic motivations and help a person to achieve his/her purpose. But does that make money by itself a purpose? I think in real life things get interlink and it is very hard to separate things like when we give a lecture about human behavior.
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Hi,
Thank you for your comment. I think you made an excellent point — real life is extremely interlinked and separation between intrinsic and extrinsic can become messy sometimes.
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Hi Vibhav,
I am with you: the first time I heard Dan Pink, the message really resonated with me and made a lot of sense, but I had never formally been introduced to the concept before. I hear what you are saying about recognition and I agree. I don’t know if anyone expects to be recognized–I mean, not usually.
We come to work, we do our tasks, we try our best, but it’s still fairly routine and there are few surprises. But when you recognize the achievements and contributions of employees and team members, that improves morale, makes people feel like they have been seen and are appreciated and has the power to impact how that person perceives themselves with respect to the company/institution/etc.
So we’re all just doing our jobs the best we can/know how and aren’t expecting to be recognized, yet when we are there is this profound impact and the individual is positively motivated to continue doing the good work that gained them recognition. Does that make sense? To me, it’s always more gratifying to be recognized by a superior than to just be handed a bonus. Money comes and goes, but when I am recognized as a contributor, that gives me something intangible that money just can’t buy.
I don’t know what the best answer to developing motivation is; I am sure that there are infinite possibilites, but it seems like when we take a moment to see people as people and not just as boxes to be checked, everything changes for the better. Thanks for the thoughtful post!
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Hi Sara,
Thank you for your comment — I always love reading what you have to say and look forward to it 🙂 and I agree with you.
But I also think that everyone believes that they are doing exceptional work (with minimal effort) and need to be recognized (I think that is an internal want of humans, means/methods might differ). Additionally I also believe that recognition doesn’t have any negative consequences where as rewards does (punishment and shame).
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Thanks for this, Vibhav! I’m wondering if Dan Ariely’s insights about trust and motivation prompted you to re-calibrate any of this? I thought the case he cited about Intel (where the rewards were $, a text from the boss, or a voucher for pizza) was pretty interesting. But I got the most out of his last story – the one about “Lemonade Insurance” and trust.
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Hello Dr. Nelson,
Thank you for your comment! Interestingly enough I had heard most of Dan Ariely’s studies from his various videos on youtube, before the event yesterday. His videos did challenge my thinking in some ways, but I have always had an intuition (from personal experience) that compliments are better motivators than money — results from his studies/experiments corroborated my intuition. My take away from his talk was that emotions are cardinal drivers of human behavior — how they are elicited matters the most.
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