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RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Royal Society of Arts · 20.2M views · 2010-04-01 · 10:48

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Overview

An RSA Animate whiteboard adaptation of Dan Pink's talk on what motivates people at work. It argues that beyond simple tasks, autonomy, mastery and purpose drive performance more than money.

On Hacker News

HN uses it in discussions of pay, management, and motivation as the standard short explanation of autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Recommended by 11 HN people across 10 months · HN mentions 2010–2022

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What people said

btilly · 2014-03 · Strong recommendation

The previous manager was very good at "leading through inspiration". He made people feel good about themselves, feel like they were learning, and feel like they were making a difference both for their corner of the world and the whole organization. The new manager was good at keeping track of things and micromanaging. But the most inspiring line she could come up with was, "You still have a job." (I wish I was kidding.) She also had an unfortunate habit of lying badly and often, with a resulting destruction of trust. But that aspect I'm too bitter about at the moment to want to discuss. To see why it matters, go watch [VIDEO] . I believe that its message is not complete (for instance I've noticed that correlations between stress and mental performance is highly dependent upon the mental task you are doing), but what it says about motivation is spot on. The key factors are Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Good leaders can give people the sense of all three while still getting them to do what the organization needs them to do. Micromanagement makes it clear what the organization wants, but destroys motivation.

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MrDunham · 2011-01 · Strong recommendation

There's a fantastic video on What Motivates Us. Link is [video] [VIDEO] . One of the things they showed an inverse correlation on amount someone gets paid and what they produce when it's anything above menial labor. Highly worth a watch.

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Kim_Bruning · 2022-01 · Recommendation

I'm still around thinking about my next answer. In the mean time, have a video about drive/what motivates us by Dan Pink for RSA. [VIDEO]

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Video by Royal Society of Arts, played through YouTube.

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