You might remember a little while back we linked to Dan Ariely’s great talk on behavioural economics.
Well, the good folk at TED have posted another thought provoker along the same lines – this time, Dan Pink talking about the science of motivation.
In short, Pink’s talk challenges the established use of performance incentives to drive improved results.
He uses a couple of compelling scientific studies to show how such incentives may work well in simpler mechanistic situations, yet potentially be less conducive to, and actually work against, more ‘right-brained’ conceptual innovation.
While I strongly agree with Pink’s assertion that such ‘right-brained’ conceptual innovation can be better served by providing for time and self-direction (a la Google, 3M, Altassian), this raises some interesting questions about incentives for skunkworks and corporate venturing initiatives.
I was recently fortunate enough, for example, to hear Dr Lars Rasmussen talk about the structural factors contributing to the success of Google Maps (and the incubation of Google Wave). Here, hard entrepreneurial incentives (both good and bad) were clearly seen as a key motivators – perhaps suggesting a distinction between motivation to generate radical new concepts, and motivation to evolve and drive an idea to market.
Anyway, we’re not going to bottom this now, and it’s probably something worth coming back to in future posts. But either way, certainly another great interesting clip.
