Dan Pink's Video

What is the core theme of Dan Pink's argument? Why do rewards not work? Under what conditions do incentives work and under what conditions do incentives not work? Why? Do you think he is right? Explain.

Dan Pink video’s main themes was about changing the 20th century’s traditional management and bring motivations, intrinsic motivation, autonomy, mastery and purpose into 21st century. He explains in detail with the help of candle experiment that intrinsic motivation leads to better performance compared to extrinsic motivation. He also mentioned that incentives/rewards are actually supposed to sharpen thinking and increase creativity but are actually doing the opposite. I agree this cannot be the only motivator for high performance, I think the rewards/incentives need to be tied to specific tasks as mentioned in texts. Each task and individual performs might need different motivators. Managers should understand the employee’s needs and expectations and motivate accordingly. He articulates that reward – punishment, contingent motivators works only when the tasks have a clear goal and narrowed concentrated focus. He proves this by providing us the research done by Economist Dan Ariely with MIT students with games, which involved creativity, motor skills & concentration. According to this research, tasks involved with Mechanical skill worked as expected. But when it involved cognitive skills larger the reward poorer the performance. He recommends organizations to use new approach, which revolves around intrinsic motivation. This involves 3 building blocks Autonomy, mastery & purpose. He is proposing this based on the assumption that money is taken off the tables. I think these new building blocks of new motivation comes should come into picture once the individual’s unmet monetary needs are met. He states that to get more engagement from employees then we need self-direction. He summarized by providing 3 points what science