Daniel Pink

You just have to show the results to the company, the rest of the company, in this fun meeting at the end of those 24 hours.

They call these things FedEx days because you have to deliver something overnight.

Well, it turns out that that one day of undiluted autonomy has produced a whole array of ideas for new products, upgrades to existing products, fixes for some flaws in current products that would never have emerged except for that FedEx day.

Now, this is not a carrot-and-stick motivator.

This is not saying to them, if you are innovative, I will give you $500.

It's saying, you probably want to be innovative, so let me just get out of your way and let you be innovative.

That's a very different approach to motivation.

I think that's true at one level, but I also think that human beings... Listen, human beings are complex.

We're motivated.

We have biological motivations, okay?

We drink when we're thirsty and we eat when we're hungry.

That's a motivation.

Human beings also have a reward and punishment motivation.

So if you say to me, Dan, I'm going to go pay you $100 to go stand out in the street corner and tap your head, I'm going out the door right now.

We respond well to rewards and punishments.

But human beings also have other motivations.

The drive to do things because they're interesting.

The drive to do things because they matter.

The drive to do things because we get better at them.

The drive to do things because they contribute to the world.