Imee’s Reviews > Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us > Status Update

we know that the richest experiences in our lives aren't when we're clamoring for validation from others, but when we're listening to our own voice doing something that matters, doing it well, and doing it in the service of a cause larger than ourselves.

Imagine an organization, for example, that believes in affirmative action one that wants to make the world a better place by creating a more
diverse workforce. By reducing ethics to a checklist, suddenly affirmative action is just a bunch of requirements that the organization must meet
to show that it isn't discriminating.

If-then rewards require people to forfeit some of their autonomy

they found that enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation, namely how creative a person feels when working on the project, is the strongest and most pervasive driver. A large majority of programmers, the researchers discovered, reported that they frequently reached the state of optimal challenge called flow

I t suggested that, in the end, human beings aren't much different from horses that the way to get us moving in the right direction is by dangling a crunchier carrot or wielding a sharper stick. But what this operating system lacked in enlightenment, it made up for in effectiveness. I t worked well extremely well. Until it didn't.