Quotes from Today’s Creativity World Forum
“If we believe that creativity matters, how do we foster that? We know how to motivate people: if you reward something, you get more of a behavior. If you punish something, you get less of that behavior…. that’s often how it works. But that’s not always how it works. There’s a science in motivation…. what really motivates people? For simple tasks, the classic set of motivators – do this, get that – for simple tasks, that works really well. For more complicated and complex tasks, tasks that require creativity – the classic motivators – do this, get that – don’t work very well….
“We see carrot and stick motivators fail in schools before our very eyes. But our response is ‘Those carrot and stick motivators failed again, let’s try again.’ Our response is ‘let’s get more carrots, let’s sharpen those sticks.’ It’s wrong.”
“At work, if you don’t pay people enough, if you don’t treat people well, you won’t get creativity. You must pay people enough. I would argue you must pay people more than enough. You must take money off the table as an issue.”
“Management is a fundamentally outdated technology designed to get people to comply. But to get people to be creative is when they are not managed, but when they operate on their own steam.”
- Author Daniel Pink at the Creativity World Forum today. I saw at least a half dozen people who I know don’t get what he was saying, and I doubt they will tomorrow.
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Comments
These are great points. Antiquated, behavioristic notions of motivation do not drive real creativity. Positive, engaging environments are more authentic sources for deep creativity.
I would agree that simple reinforcement schedules are not sufficient to explain the creative process; however, reward and punishment are still the most powerful motivators for everyday behavior…such as waking up, getting to work on time, relating to other people.
Steve, why do you assume some individuals don’t \get\ it? Do you \get\ it?
I think I heard Mr. Pink on NPR a few weeks ago. His talk sounds like an exact copy of what he said on the radio.
I completely agree with him about more money. My creativity gets bolstered just by the mere mention of more money.
This explains my lack of creativity quite well.