The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Daniel Pink’s RSA Animate on the Science of Motivation

RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Watch this video on YouTube

Three Counterintuitive Motivations

I learned three counterintuitive motivations behind our actions:

Autonomy

The desire to direct our own lives and work

Mastery

The urge to get better at what matters to us

Purpose

The yearning to serve something larger than ourselves

A focus on pure profit alone hurts businesses, workers, and consumers.

Understanding Intrinsic Motivation

The Autonomy Factor

Traditional management approaches assume people need to be directed and controlled. Research shows the opposite: people thrive when given freedom over their time, tasks, team, and technique.

Companies like Google, Atlassian, and 3M have implemented “free time” policies where employees can work on self-directed projects, leading to innovations like Gmail, Post-it Notes, and numerous software improvements.

The Mastery Principle

Humans naturally seek to improve and develop skills that matter to them. This explains why people spend countless hours learning musical instruments, perfecting athletic skills, or contributing to open-source projects without financial compensation.

Mastery requires effort, embracing challenges, and viewing failures as learning opportunities rather than deficiencies.

The Purpose-Driven Life

People yearn for meaning in their work beyond profit. Organizations that connect their mission to something greater attract more dedicated team members and often outperform purely profit-driven competitors.

Purpose-driven companies like TOMS Shoes, Patagonia, and others demonstrate that profit and purpose can coexist and even reinforce each other.

When the profit motive becomes unmoored from the purpose motive, bad things happen: poor-quality products, unhappy employees, corporate scandals, and unhappy customers.

Daniel Pink

About Daniel Pink

Daniel H. Pink is the author of several bestselling books about business, work, creativity, and behavior, including “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” which is the basis for this RSA Animate video.

Pink’s research challenges traditional views about motivation, showing that the carrot-and-stick approach is often ineffective for today’s creative, conceptual work. His insights have influenced organizations worldwide to rethink how they engage and motivate their people.

Learn More

Applying These Principles

For Leaders

Create environments where autonomy thrives, mastery is encouraged, and purpose is clear.

For Teams

Focus on collaborative goals with meaning rather than competitive, profit-only metrics.

For Individuals

Seek roles and projects that offer autonomy, growth potential, and alignment with personal values.

What Really Motivates Us At Home & The Workplace?