Daniel Pink: How to motivate people

Stick or carrot? Eliminate commissions? That's radical. Basic salary and then give profit share at year end.
Often we make wrong assumptions. Humans are semi-sophisticated robots? Not true. Humans are blobs? Passive and inert. Not true.
Our nature is to be active and engaged. Find me a 2 or 4 year old who is inert. There are some things that can make some people inert over time.
What works? What creates enduring motivation? Autonomy Mastery Purpose AMP
1. Autonomy- Management. Not a river tree or mountain. It's technology from the 1850s what are we doing? Mgmt is designed to get Compliance. But we want engagement. Who is your best boss?
Someone who gives you Autonomy over Time, Team, Task, Technique -that leads to engagement.
An Australian SW company has FedEx days where people can invent stuff for 20% of their time
Gmail was a 20% free time project.
How do you make this work?
Create Scaffolding. Help them with a FedEx day. 20% time with training wheels stabilizers. Start with 10% time for cool stuff
AMP
2. Mastery. Someone somewhere is playing a bassoon. Why? Because it's fun. What motivates people to work? The days when people make progress. It is free. Flow is the delicious part of our time when we lose track of time and get positive feedback. It is hard to get them at work. Performance review is bad theatre.
Take your performance review into your own hands. Set your goals at the beginning of the month. Review.
3. Purpose. We are seeing the limits of the profit motive. It is not the kind of thing that makes people race to work. People need to be motivated by Something larger than yourself. Do people use We or They in their conversations? "We" organizations will grow.
Can I change my organization? No. Can I change what I do tomorrow? Everything starts with Conversation. That's what changes the world.