Over the last week or so, I’ve been sent a number of links on the topic of motivation. Two involve Dan Pink, and are well worth a viewing, the other is from Dan Ostlund from Fog Creek Software:

• Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation, Dan Pink @ TEDGlobal
• The Science of motivation, Dan Pink
• Why do we pay sales commissions? Dan Ostlund, Fog Creek Software

The overwhelming theme here is that extrinsic motivation factors such as financial compensation really only work in a very narrow band where tasks are mechanical or automatic, and that intrinsic motivation is necessary for engagement and innovation. These are not new ideas - motivational theorists (Hertzberg et al) suggested the same concepts in the 1960s with data to back them up.

However, what I think is interesting here is captured in a quote from Dan Pink in the TED video above:

There’s a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. 

Exactly. A whole lot of management “science” is actually just voodoo, with very little (if any) data fed back to test whether or not the newest fad, or even the conventual wisdom, actually works. That’s why it’s great to see academics and writers like Dan Pink pitching the - often counterintuitive - hard science to the management mainstream.

I hope we see a lot more of it in 2012 and I wonder if it it might be possible to kick-start a “Science-Based Management” discipline, along the same lines as Steven Novella’s Science-Based Medicine?

Update: Perhaps motivation isn’t the real problem. Could it be follow-through?