Decision Paralysis In Dan Pink's 'The Puzzle Of Motivation'

Improved Essays
In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath argue that the six criteria of stickiness make every idea more memorable and powerful. They target business-leaders, policy-makers, and teachers. The first criterion is Simple, which has two required prongs: Core, which focuses the text, and Compact, which keeps a text concise (Heath 45-46). The second criterion is Unexpected, which opens and closes knowledge gaps to keep the target audience’s attention (65). Dan Pink’s TedTalk “The Puzzle of Motivation” argues business-leaders should use intrinsic motivators, instead of extrinsic ones, to increase productivity and creativity of the right-brained, creative and conceptual, jobs. Pink satisfies the criteria Simple and Unexpected. Satisfying Simple requires satisfying its two prongs, Core and Compact. For Core, one requirement to satisfy is Not Burying the Lead, which is not burying the one central message under unneeded information (Heath 32). The first section of Pink’s text describes a candle problem that was presented to groups where each with a different motivator, and how the group motivated by money was slower than the group motivated by establishing the average completion time (Pink 1:47). This section of text relates back to the central message that extrinsic motivators, like money, don’t prove as effective in the completion of certain tasks as intrinsic ones can, like self-achievement (1:47). The second section describes a modified version of the candle problem, described in section one, with a twist of the problem being more straight-forward than conceptual, and this time the extrinsic motivator groups beat the intrinsic ones (5:04). After a comparison is made between the two candle problems, Pink explains that where intrinsic motivators should be used, extrinsic are instead (5:04). This section demonstrates a key point that can be understood from the central message that extrinsic motivators work better for non-conceptual and non-creative jobs where the task is straight-forward, yet they are used in the exact opposite situations (5:04). The third section describes a couple of experiments or studies carried out by a couple of renowned schools of economics: One was showing how once conceptual ability was needed for a task, the more negative the effect of an increasing extrinsic motivator was; where the second was a school looking at various studies of pay-performance jobs, and they concluded extrinsic motivators worsen performance (9:00). This section relates back to the central message that extrinsic motivators decrease performance in conceptual needed tasks (9:00). The final section describes what makes intrinsic factors work, (autonomy, mastery, and purpose) and gives examples of companies who use autonomy and are able to do amazing accomplishments which wouldn’t have occurred without autonomy (12:17). This section demonstrates …show more content…
The solution to the problem, extrinsic motivators are being used in businesses where it actually inhibits top performance, is for the motivators to change to intrinsic ones (Pink 17:20). The one solution to the problem with motivation in businesses is described and it is the only one given. Thus, Pink’s text fully satisfies Avoiding Decision …show more content…
Describing the type of students Dan Ariely did a study on, Pink uses “MIT” (Pink 9:00) to describe the high-intellect and intensity of the students. Pink did this to save words and describe the types of students they are.
A Metaphor is a non-literal comparison (Heath 60). When Pink describes how the business operating system and finds all the motivation is based “around extrinsic motivators, around carrots and sticks” (Pink 5:36). This is a metaphor between extrinsic motivators and carrots and sticks. Sticks prod people to do actions as would a threat, while carrots entice people to do an action for the carrot as a reward would do. Both threats and rewards are extrinsic motivators, and this comparison is expressing how basic an extrinsic motivator is.
A generative analogy is a metaphor that allows the reader to gain a much deeper understanding of the comparison (Heath 60-61). In Pink’s text, he describes management as a “television set” (Pink 13:09). By using this metaphor to compare management to a television set, Pink is able to have the audience draw conclusions on the many similarities between the two on what they are composed of and their role in the grand scheme (i.e. the parts of the television set and how they can be compared to the roles in management) while using fewer words. Since Pink’s text satisfied more than one Compact strategy,

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    A metaphor is a word or phrase that describes an object, which content cannot be taken literal. An example of a metaphor is Liberty’s school motto, “Knowledge Aflame”. The school is not going to actually set knowledge on fire. The phrase represents the faculty’s goal is to spark an interest in education and learning among their students. Liberty University wants to provide the best education to its students and in return expects the attending and future students to come to be educationally hungry.…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nowadays everyone pursues wisdom. Wisdom brings individuals success, achievement and reputation. There are many different ways to define wisdom. In the essay “Project Classroom Makeover”, Cathy Davison talks about how students’ wisdom is defined by impressive test scores in the current education system. She thinks the true smartness inside students relies on creative thinking so that schools have to focus on helping their future-oriented students cultivate this special characteristic.…

    • 1629 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Diego Andrade Mrs. Williams English 73x October 10, 2016 Drive In the book Drive by Daniel F. Pink he talks about how the use of rewards and punishments to control our employees prediction is an antiquated way of managing people. Pink advocates that one way on how to maximize the employees enjoyment and productivity of 21st century work is by upgrading our philosophy so that it can include autonomy, mastery and purpose. Pinks theory of moving from motivation 2.0 to motivation 3.0 is extremely useful because it sheds light on the different problems of how motivation 2.0 is needed to be updated so that it can be improved. In this essay I am going to tell you a bit about my motivation and how I manage to keep my motivation going even after so…

    • 1237 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Metaphors In Speech

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Introduction Over the course of history, leaders have stood in front of their citizens and used their words to connect with the audience. They have waged wars, instilled confidence, and apologized for their actions all through the construction of carefully crafted speeches. These speeches are landmarks of history, allowing those to look back and understand the struggles and triumphs of the time. One way that these leaders convey their messages to large audiences is to use metaphors in their speeches.…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The written word and our capacity to remember it is done easier when a picture is presented to align with the message being expressed. This picture’s visual and figurative representation sums up metaphor usage. As we have studied in the particular assignment, one can manage meaning when he can convince others to live the reality he would like to them to pursue. Enigmatic leaders seemingly influence how people perceive reality and therefore act and the language of metaphor is their not-so-secret weapon. “Metaphors are used frequently in everyday life.…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    As a result, workers felt disappointed, which led to a reduction in profitability and issues in quality control. The incentive system symbolizes the difference and significance of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation, one of Herzberg’s Two-Factor Models. In Herzberg Model, “Intrinsic motivations are internal rewards that a person feels when performing a job, otherwise self-motivated while extrinsic motivations are external rewards that occur apart from the nature of work” (Newstrom, 2015 p.123). Evidently, the plan focused on external factors, which led to employees’ increased extrinsic motivation.…

    • 1952 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A metaphor is a word or phrase for one thing that is used to refer to another thing in order to show or suggest that they are similar. Artists use metaphor as a way to express their artwork in a meaningful manner, through object. An artwork/object has the potential to be anything that the creator decides it to be viewed as. Artists Alberto Giacometti and Andy Goldsworthy use the relationship between the drawing and the development of the three dimensional artwork.…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In my opinion, incentives are to drive high self-motivated individuals to their full potential, to sell a product that a company wants in return on their…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Unit 2 Essay – Janet Chow Case Study Case Study Three showcases an inexperienced manager, Janet Chow, struggling to earn a critical authoritative presence with her direct reports. Janet was a highly regarded at her company for being a team player. Janet seems to respond to praise and recognition of a job well done by perpetuating successful outcomes on her assigned projects. It appears that Janet is motivated by intrinsic stimulations, reflected in her continuous successful work accomplishments that appear to have no extrinsic motivators spurring her efforts. Intrinsic motivation is satisfaction and fulfillment achieved by simply accomplishing one’s set goal or task.…

    • 809 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Metaphors have been used to explain the world around us in figure of speech when describing a situation or idea. Some of these metaphors would give rise to idioms that further express our point of view in viewing the world around us. We will be covering five conventional metaphors that include that Ideas are plants, ideas are commodities, understanding is seeing, the eyes are containers for the emotions, and life is a gambling game. Metaphors are a reflection of our world and our culture that help us understand meanings and ideas. Ideas are plants is a symbiotic metaphor of how a person’s idea is like an organic seed that sprouts, grows, bear fruit, and finally wither away and die.…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hans-Jörg 2000). Accordingly, the take a look at of the story as based with the aid of conceptual metaphor might also forged mild onto this complex and unresolved rely. After studying those strains, the want for an analysis of the determining role of metaphor in knowledge and structuring fairy testimonies, or even different sorts of literature can be a piece greater apparent. As far as we recognize, there are no previous works inside this line of studies with the exception of Karen Bowe’s Senior Honour Thesis (1996), and a few different papers on metaphor and myths (e.G. Sweetser, 1995).…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Emotional Metaphors

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A metaphor is an expression of words with a more clarified meaning and speaks more than just the comparison between tow objects or situations. It is used by multiple people and it is used in the way it is learned and the language they use to express the metaphor. This assignment is being researched to describe the emotional metaphor usage in the English language used by the Australians and the Chinese. The research will be carried out by inviting few participants and asking them to behave normally and then use ethnocentric observation to study the reactions and the use of emotional metaphors they use in their conversation.…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    For example, giving people the freedom to be creative not only to improve the firms products or services, but the freedom to make their own works schedule, as long as they complete the designated requirements, will be beneficial in implementing intrinsic motivation. It is noted that the…

    • 1027 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In others words, salary, promotion or others work and services can also become their motivators as long as these can be beneficial to them. Moreover, extrinsic motivators can also include anything that comes with the control of the employees and they can be assessing on the feedback, deadlines or monitoring. Amabile (1993) further elaborate the extrinsic motivators are the most common tool in the organisations because there are few people truly enjoy writing up the reports with the pressure of deadlines or performance reviewing subordinates…

    • 1006 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Alliteration The repetition of initial consonant sounds Imagery Words or phrases that appeal to any sense or any combination of senses Metaphor A comparison between two objects with the intent of giving clearer meaning to one of them. Often forms of the "to be" verb are used, such as "is" or "was", to make the comparison Onomatopoeia…

    • 316 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays