Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose in the People Side of Business
This past weekend I heard a talk by Daniel Pink, the author of Drive. What fun hearing a great writer present psychological research and pull it into a coherent idea. You see, Pink believes that businesses are caught in the grip of an outdated orthodoxy; that if you reward people you get increased output. He says that this is not always true.
Pink pointed out that the new research shows that “rewarding” tasks that have even a rudimentary cognitive component doesn’t improve performance and often decreases it. Hmm, this is not intuitive. In other words, more money offered for thinking well produces less performance. For example, when teachers were incentivized for improved teaching performance, there were no improvements in their work.
But, when people were given the time to think freely, without incentives or requirements, they were their most creative. For example, Australian software workers were give an afternoon to “do what they wanted” and see what ideas they had for their work. It turned out that the most useful and creative ideas in the company came out of that short creative period. No wonder Google offers its employees a significant percentage of their workweek for unstructured creative time.
Pink was clear about his position. Managers ought to get out of the management business and find ways to engage their employees. The keys to a successful company, at least one where there is thinking involved, are in employees gaining increased amounts of AUTONOMY, MASTERY, and PURPOSE.
Creating a high performance organization requires an understanding of a host of psychological principles. They work together. Pink has focused on a core idea that facilitates people working at their best.
Humans have this strange quirk where they do best when they can be creative; where they can do it with meaning and where they have a sense of control over their work product. Find a way to build it into your work environment and the rewards will come your way.
Tom DeMaio, PhD
Business Management Consultant Tips 
Giving people autonomy, mastery and purpose is in itself incentive. The few companies that do this are succeeding beyond their own expectations. I am so glad to see your blog. Have been feeling like I am the only one seeing what makes sense, and it was getting a little lonely here!
Slowly, but surely, I think there is progress despite tightly held beliefs. Good evidence and compassionate encouragement will help businessmen (and others) release their controling grip and support the best expression of people. Thanks for noticing.