How good are we at identifying what we enjoy?

[Tucker]

After re-reading Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, I was caught by this passage: "...dissonance theory demonstrated that our behavior transcends the effects of rewards and punishments and often contradicts them. For example, Elliot [Aronson, co-author] predicted that if people go through a great deal of pain, discomfort, effort, or embarrassment to get something, they will be happier with that 'something' than if it came to them easily." (p. 15) The reason is that they want to self-justify the effort they put in, so they convince themselves that the outcome must have been worth the effort.

This seems to throw a wrench in the idea that rewards and punishments (what Pink in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us calls Motivation 2.0) work in a simple manner and also in the assumption that we already know what we love to do (what Pink calls Motivation 3.0). Rewards and punishments sometimes backfire for reasons other than Pink identified. Pink said they turn previously enjoyable tasks into drudgery. But they also are woven into our narrative of why we have made certain choices--a narrative that isn't always accurate and tends to be inflected by whatever makes us look good to ourselves. We frequently misremember why we behaved the way we did.

[Ryan]

I'm not sure how this throws a wrench in the topics Pink depicts in his book. The whole book leans on the idea that rewards and punishments aren't good motivators. The initiation is what Pink is describing. What you are describing is the effects of our actions and how we feel afterwards as a result of the process.
I feel you are trying to compare apples to oranges.

[Tucker]

You may be right; it may be apples to oranges when comparing motivation at the beginning of the process to the rationalization at the end of the process.

Let me think about what I might have meant when I wrote this a few months ago!

I think I was assuming that the decision/action processes by which we arrive at opinions about what we like to do are iterative. That is, our decisions and opinions aren't in a vacuum, but are related to past life experience. In that sense, there's no pure beginning or end, because you can't isolate one decision from all the others.

An example related to management theory:

Suppose a girl's parents want her to become a doctor, but she insists she's an artist. Against their protests, she goes to art school where she self-justifies majoring in advertising as a reasonable way for an artist to make money. As a young woman, she lands some marketing internships where she's treated poorly but she feels she needs to slog through them. Eventually she's a career professional in marketing. She doesn't really love it, but she's spent her life telling herself that she loves it. Otherwise she wouldn't have worked so hard for it. It's woven into her identity and she's made sacrifices for it since she was a teenager.

When one first meets this person, one might label her a "Type I" personality according to Pink's categorization, meaning she finds her work intrinsically motivating. She might even label herself that. But someone who can really dig down, like a good therapist, might help her discover that she's got "Type X" in there too, extrinsic motivation. She's in marketing partly for the rewards it brings: salary, prestige, getting her parents off her back.

On any given task in the marketing department, it would be difficult for her manager to know whether she would do best with the carrot-and-stick approach of extrinsic motivation, or the "do what you love, then celebrate" approach of intrinsic motivation. Our sense of what we love to do can be clouded. Past rewards and punishments are one thing that clouds our vision.

[Brandon]

Tucker wrote: "You may be right; it may be apples to oranges when comparing motivation at the beginning of the process to the rationalization at the end of the process.

Let me think about what I might have meant..."

NICE I THINK YO HIT THE NAIL ON HEAD

[Savttester]

!

[V.S.]

Drive + Michael Hyatt's podcast on 'How to find your true calling' helps. i.e. intersection of the Venn circles of Passion, Proficiency and Profitability. Leads to a sustainable decision where we can continue doing what we enjoy.

[Michael Burns]

Ryan wrote: "I'm not sure how this throws a wrench in the topics Pink depicts in his book. The whole book leans on the idea that rewards and punishments aren't good motivators. The initiation is what Pink is de..."

I agree. Pink clearly differentiates between motivation and incentive--as well he should--and he did so in a business setting. As someone who spent a number of years working in the finance industry in which quotas, incentives, and negative consequences exist on a plane sometimes bordering on the ridiculous, I often felt just as Pink described. I came away from this book not feeling that he'd simplified just a core issue in modern business, but that he'd struck a chord in a greater, more spiritual sense--whether he knew it or not. His three elements: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose apply to everyone, all the time. Not just at work.

Read Alain de Botton, Robert Greene, and Ken Robinson, too. They fill out the Dream Team of human motivation and mastery.

[Michael Burns]

Tucker wrote: "You may be right; it may be apples to oranges when comparing motivation at the beginning of the process to the rationalization at the end of the process.

Let me think about what I might have meant..."

You're talking about individual motivation. Pink was talking about Corporate incentive. Two different things. Yes, I have intrinsic motivators and extrinsic ones, as well. But when my employer says I have to "sell" six new investment accounts a day to reach a $1,000 payout at the end of the quarter (or be terminated for missing the goal), he's corrupted the process (Wells Fargo). Carrot and Stick. It's not the only way to motivate employees and shouldn't be the way they're motivated in most businesses, today.

Wouldn't you agree?

[Roopokar]

Tucker... agree