Daniel Pink's Motivational Conundrum

One big question I have after Daniel Pink’s video is where the hell intrinsic motivation has been in my own life? I’m seeing so many opportunities for it to be implemented in education and just life as a whole. I will definitely provide concrete examples of how this can be used in our society in my own TED talk. Another question I have is how has learning all this research about motivation not dramatically altered our lives? The workplace seems to be relatively similar now as it was before this research. Are CEO’s not looking at this information and wanting to increase productivity through intrinsic motivation right away? If I were a CEO, I would be very excited about this, so I’m not sure why it hasn’t been implemented very much, at least from what I’ve seen. Pink says that this has been replicated by psychologists and sociologists, so why does it seem like the mainstream American society hasn’t heard of it? He goes on to talk about paying people enough so that they aren’t thinking about money anymore. How would one know where this fine line is drawn? How much money is enough money? Later in the video, Pink talks about autonomy, the desire to be self-directed. His example of the Australian software company really showed how this can change the workplace. But why can’t we use more autonomy in education? I wish classes had all their work available from the beginning so you can go at your own pace and complete tasks autonomously. With autonomy in education, students will be more driven to get things done. Also, if you couple this with creativity, a personal motivator for each student, you have reached a motivational powerhouse. Imagine a system where each child is self-directed and all the work does not have to be done in the traditional way. Students should have an opportunity for nearly complete autonomy in their studies by high school, at least. I definitely noticed something in Pink’s presentation style that really turned me off to his message. He started talking about people who work on open source projects but still have jobs. He began to yell during this part. This solidifies my belief that one should never yell in a TED talk. Later in the video he talks about purpose. As the video shows it, it seems like only the CEO’s or presidents of companies have decisions of the company’s purpose. What if each employee had their own unique purpose for coming to work? Why can’t autonomy apply to purpose in the workplace? I know that for me at school, a self-created purpose does more than the one they give you. My DRIVE sentence inspires me more than the school mission statement does. If we all had a unique sense of purpose, I think we could be very inspired to come to school each day. Daniel Pink’s presentation style throughout seems almost harsh. He shoves all the facts down your throat. It seems fast and punctual, something that I don’t want my own TED talk to be. I want mine to be more like Ken Robinson’s, where there is comedy and room to breathe. However, I do feel that Pink’s messages about motivation are very important. Business leaders as well as educators should know this research and apply it. I think that’s all that’s missing now, is the application piece of it all. This research can make the world a better place, but only if it is used and not left to dust on a shelf and looked at every once in a while.