Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Daniel H Pink

My First impression based on the title and the subtitle was that this was just another self help pump up book, I couldn't have been more wrong. This book offers an unconventional view on what drives us humans and argues vehemently about why traditional carrot and stick methods of motivation don't work, or rather why they don't work in today's knowledge economy.

Daniel Pink argues that we humans are driven more by the innate need to do meaningful and creative work rather than just the general drudgery of monotonous work that we tend to in the factories of the 20th century.

The book quotes a lot of very popular economic studies and borrows a lot from other books like Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, by Levitt and Dubner, Good to Great by Jim Collins and others. To his credit Pink comes across as very honest and straight forward, giving credit where it is due and clearly outlining any disclosures.

The book professes what enlightened leaders know and have been teaching for ages, Money and material rewards can drive people only so far, beyond a certain threshold the effect of throwing more additional money doesn't generate any more motivation, very much like the principle of marginal utility. Offering people the freedom and flexibility in timings and methods of work is worth more than just giving more money. The feeling of being part of something worthwhile will often dissuade us from jumping ship even when we might be worse off financially.

In fact offering money can in many cases be a negative like was observed in an experiment where potential blood donors were offered cash rewards for donation, and the actual percentage of donors who ended up donating was found to be lowered because the act of getting money somehow took away the altruistic feelings of a noble act like blood donation.

The best part was towards the end where the author has recommendations for businessmen (Books of further reading, policies to try out and implement, etc). Recommendations for individuals and parents bringing up children (Various schools and websites offering an enlightened educations based on the needs of the children)

All up I would whole heartedly recommend this book to everyone and anyone, especially parents , teachers and anyone who has an interest in leading people.