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The puzzle of motivation | Dan Pink | TED

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  • Recommended by 3 people, in Hacker News, across 3 different months.
  • Presented by Dan Pink, as the video describes them
  • Debated among experts. Its central claim is contested, so look for the other side.

For anyone, no background needed. Education, not medical advice.

12M views17 years ago3 recommendations

Brain and nervesNeuroscience

Dan Pink examines the mismatch between what science knows and what business does regarding human motivation and incentives.

Visit TED.com to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more. Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don't: Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories -- and maybe, a way forward. The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You're welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know. Follow TED on Twitter: twitter.com/TEDTalks Like TED on Facebook: facebook.com/TED Subscribe to our channel: youtube.com/TED TED's videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy ted.com/about/our-organization/our-policies-terms/ted-talks-…. For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at media-requests.ted.com

Why it's here

3 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended for its explanation of how traditional rewards can be counterproductive for creative tasks.

hoopin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Does business school teach people how to assert power before they're ready?”

I'll read them all over the next couple of hours. (I am sick in bed anyhow :)) Readings that I recommend are "The Great Jackass Fallacy" (I got my copy <$10 on Amazon) and "Drive" by Daniel Pink. There's also a Youtube/TED video that sums up "Drive" very well. link to this video

arkitaipin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less”

Have you seen any of Daniel Pink's work on what motivates people in business? It might inspire you to focus on other incentives than just pay salary increases. link to this video

Ey7NFZ3P0nzAein Hacker News • Recommends

On “Antirender: remove the glossy shine on architectural renderings”

> The idea that money is not an effective incentive to drive behavior is wishful thinking It is obviously an incentive. But I think it's not an effective one and has many morally bad side effects. I highly recommend taking a look at the work of Daniel Pink related to money as an incentive. See The Puzzle Of Motivation (~20min) link to this video

nreecein Hacker News • Mentions

On “Functional Fixedness - The Candle Problem”

The Candle Problem was used as an insightful example by Daniel Pink in his TED talk on the surprising science of motivation - link to this video

DeepDuhin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Why did a Train Carrying Biofuel Cross the Border 24 Times and Never Unload?”

Traditional incentives are often not as effective as you think: link to this video The best way to have motivated employees for creative tasks is to give them a high base salary, good working conditions and hire suiting ones in the first place. For repetitive jobs the incentives might work, but these are also the jobs where you should think about automation.

ChrisMarshallNYin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ways to improve mental health for software developers”

I remember a TED talk that Dan Pink gave (I think this might be it0), in which he mentioned a company that did "20% time." Atlassian; not Google. 0 link to this video

gretchin Hacker News • Mentions

On “California needs real math education, not gimmicks”

This Ted talk (includes a lot of data) shows that motivation via money hurts creative problem solving. link to this video

ismailmajin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (February 2026)”

How do you scale a more human management system when both the manager or the managee can be incompetent or malicious. I'm aware that incentives are often counterproductive or insulting for white collar workers where there are elements of creativity in the job, but I feel like to get it to work you need trust which IMO cannot be scaled to big companies like Google. FYI, I'm paraphrasing, perhaps badly "The puzzle of motivation | Dan Pink | TED". link to this video