Quotes from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Daniel H. Pink ·  242 pages

Rating: (67.8K votes)


“Greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible. Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one's sights and pushing toward the horizon.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“The ultimate freedom for creative groups is the freedom to experiment with new ideas. Some skeptics insist that innovation is expensive. In the long run, innovation is cheap. Mediocrity is expensive—and autonomy can be the antidote.”   TOM KELLEY General Manager, IDEO”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“The monkeys solved the puzzle simply because they found it gratifying to solve puzzles. They enjoyed it. The joy of the task was its own reward.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“The problem with making an extrinsic reward the only destination that matters is that some people will choose the quickest route there, even if it means taking the low road. Indeed, most of the scandals and misbehavior that have seemed endemic to modern life involve shortcuts.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us



“As Carol Dweck says, “Effort is one of the things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it. It would be an impoverished existence if you were not willing to value things and commit yourself to working toward them.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“People can have two different mindsets, she says. Those with a “fixed mindset” believe that their talents and abilities are carved in stone. Those with a “growth mindset” believe that their talents and abilities can be developed. Fixed mindsets see every encounter as a test of their worthiness. Growth mindsets see the same encounters as opportunities to improve.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“we have three innate psychological needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness. When those needs are satisfied, we’re motivated, productive, and happy.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Newtonian physics runs into problems at the subatomic level. Down there--in the land of hadrons, quarks, and Schrödinger's cat--things gent freaky. The cool rationality of Isaac Newton gives way to the bizarre unpredictability of Lewis Carroll.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“When the reward is the activity itself--deepening learning, delighting customers, doing one's best--there are no shortcuts.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us



“children who are praised for “being smart” often believe that every encounter is a test of whether they really are. So to avoid looking dumb, they resist new challenges and choose the easiest path. By contrast, kids who understand that effort and hard work lead to mastery and growth are more willing to take on new, difficult tasks.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy. But goals imposed by others--sales targets, quarterly returns, standardized test scores, and so on--can sometimes have dangerous side effects.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“We leave lucrative jobs to take low-paying ones that provide a clearer sense of purpose.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Living a satisfying life requires more than simply meeting the demands of those in control. Yet in our offices and our classrooms we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get you through the day, but the latter will get you through the night.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“For artists, scientists, inventors, schoolchildren, and the rest of us, intrinsic motivation—the drive do something because it is interesting, challenging, and absorbing—is essential for high levels of creativity.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us



“Being a professional,” Julius Erving once said, “is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don’t feel like doing them.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Management isn’t about walking around and seeing if people are in their offices,” he told me. It’s about creating conditions for people to do their best work.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Why reach for something you can never fully attain? But it’s also a source of allure. Why not reach for it? The joy is in the pursuit more than the realization. In the end, mastery attracts precisely because mastery eludes.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Have you ever seen a six-month-old or a three-year-old who’s not curious and self-directed? I haven’t. That’s how we are out of the box.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us



“Rewards do not undermine people’s intrinsic motivation for dull tasks because there is little or no intrinsic motivation to be undermined.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Once we realize that the boundaries between work and play are artificial, we can take matters in hand and begin the difficult task of making life more livable.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“People use rewards expecting to gain the benefit of increasing another person’s motivation and behavior, but in so doing, they often incur the unintentional and hidden cost of undermining that person’s intrinsic motivation toward the activity.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Lawyers often face intense demands but have relatively little “decision latitude.” Behavioral scientists use this term to describe the choices, and perceived choices, a person has. In a sense, it’s another way of describing autonomy—and lawyers are glum and cranky because they don’t have much of it.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Goals may cause systematic problems for organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation. Use care when applying goals in your organization.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us



“And the first step in bulldozing these obstacles is to enumerate them. As Peters puts it, “What you decide not to do is probably more important than what you decide to do.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Motivation 1.0 presumed that humans were biological creatures, struggling to obtain our basic needs for food, security and sex.

Motivation 2.0 presumed that humans also responded to rewards and punishments. That worked fine for routine tasks but incompatible with how we organize what we do, how we think about what we do, and how
we do what we do. We need an upgrade.

Motivation 3.0, the upgrade we now need, presumes that humans also have a drive to learn, to create, and to better the world.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“Nobody “manages” the open source contributors.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


“That’s why Linux and Wikipedia and Firefox work.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


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About the author

Daniel H. Pink
Born place: The United States
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