Daniel Pink's Motivation Talk

Daniel Pink's TED Talk on people's motivations surprised me as to where peoples' real motivations to work lie and how incentives affect people and their work.  From what he says, I now see how people's drives to achieve autonomy, mastery, and purpose in their lives motivate them to make the most of their work. Autonomy is the need to be in control of one's own job and life. Mastery is when one attempts to learn and master a certain talent or skill.  Purpose is the idea of being part of the something bigger than yourself, or just having a point to your job or skill. In 8 out of 9 people that were in a study, the people offered the lowest incentive achieved the greatest success, while those who had the most failed miserably. The idea of "FedEx" days in the workplace are a wonderful outlet for workers' creativity and it adds to the company's productivity and the invention of such products. If all companies gave that to their employees, I'm sure many very useful tools would come of it.  When Pink speaks, he uses large motions, whether with his hands or if hes walking across the stage.  He also inserts comical bits throughout the speech.  Because incentives don't work for most people in important situations, Pink bringing this note up may improve job productivity all over the work spectrum, as people begin to become more productive.  As we were discussing in fishbowl today, if grades and class were not absolutely mandatory for children, I think students would get a more enriching learning experience because they wouldn't deal with the stress of grades and it might just weed the classes down to the kids who actually want to be learning and taking the class... Much like a college atmosphere.  But the problems with this would still be parents pushing their children to the child's limit and children may not be mature enough to take on such responsibilities as choosing certain classes that will help them in the future. It is an idealistic idea, but an interesting one.Over all, Daniel Pink's talk about people's motives sparked thoughts for the future of education and the workplace.