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Driven: How Human Nature Shapes our Choices

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A touchstone for understanding how we behave on the job
"This is a stimulating and provocative book in bringing together important ideas from different fields, and, thereby, giving us a whole new slant on 'human nature.'" --Edgar H. Schein, SloanMore
A touchstone for understanding how we behave on the job
"This is a stimulating and provocative book in bringing together important ideas from different fields, and, thereby, giving us a whole new slant on 'human nature.'" --Edgar H. Schein, Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and Senior Lecturer, MIT
In this astonishing, provocative, and solidly researched book, two Harvard Business School professors synthesize 200 years of thought along with the latest research drawn from the biological and social sciences to propose a new theory, a unified synthesis of human nature. Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria have studied the way people behave in that most fascinating arena of human behavior-the workplace-and from their work they produce a book that examines the four separate and distinct emotive drives that guide human behavior and influence the choices people make: the drives to acquire, bond, learn, and defend. They ultimately show that, just as advances in information technology have spurred the New Economy in the last quarter of the twentieth century, current advances in biology will be the key to understanding humans and organizations in the new millennium. Less

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Community Reviews

rated it it was ok
about 3 years ago

Here's the book in a nutshell: "we think there are 4 drives that drive all human behavior, and other people should do the research to see if it's true. Also, if it *is* true, here's how it applies to GM, HP, and the Russian and Irish economies". The rest of the book reads... Read full review

rated it really liked it
almost 4 years ago

The idea of summarizing what drives us humans is actually interesting and the authors did quite a good job. The concept they develop is clear and made me think a lot about how people I know and/or myself act sometimes. The first part (describing each drive and trying to e... Read full review

rated it really liked it
5 months ago

Uses a basis of neurology and other disciplines to define what drives human beings. It breaks it down into four fundamental drives that sometimes intermingle, but can't be further simplified. These are the Drive to Acquire, the Drive to Bond, the Drive to Learn, and the D... Read full review

rated it it was ok
over 2 years ago

Basic - The only nugget I got from the book is an idea to create a most robust connections in a community by "forcing people" to interact based on the story of a priest having all members at the end of church put their name in a hat - pairing them up - and requiring that... Read full review

rated it really liked it
over 4 years ago

I liked the book and I think it's a fascinating read. The author says we have 4 basic drives (drive to aquire, bond, learn, and defend) and these are the basic motivators for humans. I think they should be seen as psychological rather than biological. The main theme of th... Read full review

rated it it was ok
over 4 years ago

Not a lot of practical information. The breakdown of human nature into 4 drives (to acquire, to bond, to learn, to defend) is interesting, but the evolutionary biology analysis seems a little simplistic. I'm glad I don't live in a world where most people's selections of m... Read full review

rated it really liked it
7 months ago

This book explains free will as the result of balancing the four drives underlying human emotions: the drive to acquire, to learn, to bond with others and to defend oneself and one's group.

The authors speculate that all of these drives are the result of natural selection:... Read full review

rated it really liked it
about 5 years ago

I found this book fabulous. It has already changed how I view human nature as a leader, as a member of my Family, as a member of a larger profession. Recommend to leaders, managers, social scientists, psychologists. Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria explore four fundamental... Read full review

rated it really liked it
over 2 years ago

Gostei bastante do livro, acho que adicionou bastante informação interessante.

Basicamente o livro estuda quatro motivadores humanos e tenta explicar a formação deles dada nossa evolução como espécie.

rated it did not like it
over 3 years ago

If I could turn back time and choose NOT to read this book, I would. I was looking for something that I could apply to my own life, but instead I got something a bit too academic and repetitive to sink my teeth into. Blah.

rated it it was ok
about 5 years ago

Shelves: human-behavior , brain
This was one of the hardest books I've ever read since university (. If you aspire to become an anthropologist this book is absolutely worth reading. The book covers an interesting subject that humans have 4 basic drives: to acquire, to bond, to learn and to defend. Every... Read full review

rated it liked it
over 4 years ago

A good read and interesting premise, worth the read. My only complaint is that the book was published in 2002 and is it deals with several emerging fields (evolutionary psychology, neurobiology, etc). Consequently, some of the information might alread be a bit outdated. A... Read full review

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Book Details

Hardcover, 300 pages
Published October 15th 2001 by Jossey-Bass (first published September 30th 2001
ISBN
0787957852 (ISBN13: 9780787957858)
Original Title
Driven: How Human Nature Shapes our Choices

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