Exercise 2.5

The Puzzle of Motivation

By: Dan Pink

Transcript:

       Good evening my name is Hamdan al otaiba today  Ill be talking about The Puzzle of motivation The 18:36 minutes presentation by Dan Pink, a career analyst talked about the concept of motivation to a group of businessmen and organizational leaders. Motivation is goal oriented, meaning, with proper motivation, you can achieve what you desire for, which is your goal. The presentation started with a mind bungling and complex problem about ‘The Candle Problem’. This is attaching the candle to the wall with either a thumbtacks box or matches so that the candle will not drip on the wall. Two groups from the audience will have to try solving the problem. One group was promised that if it can solve the problem, the group would have timing to discover the norms and the other group was promised money as an incentive. The result simply shows that the group that was promised money was three minutes slower than the first group.

       This presentation is Dan Pink’s strategy of introducing what best motivation can be given to people especially those within the organization to improve their performance. Simply, Dan Pink’s tries to introduce that money as a motivator is not good for solving complex problem. This extrinsic reward or traditional reward may have been true in the 20^th century but will no longer work in the 21^st century.

        At the outset though, ‘The Puzzle of Motivation’ implies that organizational leaders today are puzzled or bungled what really type of motivation that works best in improving the performance of people especially employees in an organization. Again, money could be an incentive if the works require simple tasks but for works that require complex activities, money may not be the solution but it requires already true commitment from people who will be doing the task. In the candle problem, it is not easy to use thumbtacks box and matches so that the candle will not drip from the wall because it needs deeper thinking and analysis.

         Did you know that  Modern psychology believes that intrinsic motivators are most effective motivations that businesses today should use or apply. Intrinsic motivations are autonomy, mastery and purpose. What do all these concepts mean? Dan Pink said that it is a motivation for the individual that his leader or manager gives him autonomy in direction his own life. In the parlance of organization, an individual performance better if his boss gives him more autonomy to do the task assigned of him on his pacing and means.

          Finally, in his talk, Dan Pink once again reminded the audience that in the business environment today, leaders should allow more autonomy to their people, added by giving them more mastery and purpose, businesses would be stronger and they may even change the world.