Motivation 3.0 Is Required to Transition from Tribe Stage 3 to Tribe Stage 4

In his book Drive, Daniel Pink says that when it comes to motivation, there’s a gap between what science knows and what business does. Our current business operating system is built around external, carrot-and-stick motivators — which don’t work and often do more harm than good. We need a system upgrade. And the science shows the way.

This new approach has three essential elements:

  1. Autonomy: The desire to direct our own lives
  2. Mastery: The urge to make progress and get better at something that matters
  3. Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

According to Pink, humans evolve through three distinct stages of the Human Operating System:

  1. Motivation 1.0 presumes that humans are biological creatures, struggling to meet basic needs for food, security, and sex. This system is mainly good for survival struggles.
  2. Motivation 2.0 rests on Theory X of Human Motivation, when management assumes that employees are lazy, tend to avoid work, and best respond to rewards and punishments in their environment.
  3. Motivation 3.0 rests on Theory Y of Human Motivation, when management begins to understand that when it comes to intellectual work, employees are ambitious and self-motivated and will exercise self-control. This system presumes that humans seek purpose maximization no less than profit maximization…

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