Dan Pink at TED: Financial rewards kill creativity; time for a new business model

Many times I’ve had conversations with friends about the problems of a money-centric economy, but we’ve always been stumped as to what the alternative would be.

In this video Dan Pink presents a scientific case as to why our current models of business are based on a flawed assumption – that monetary rewards yield better results, and presents a realistic alternative that has been proven to work.

It turns out that experiments have shown this is true for simple mechanical tasks but not for more complex tasks such as much of the knowledge work we do in the 21st century.
Dan argues that instead we should turn to intrinsic motivations of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose as a means to get businesses succeed. This is why schemes like results only work environments, giveback, 20% time, hackdays and fedex days are becoming more commonplace – because they work, and they get better results faster than traditional carrot-and-stick approaches.

I think it also gives us a scientific reason as to why top execs and “fat cats” should not get such gigantic salaries and bonuses.