Daniel Pink

Not necessarily, because it comes from within.

A carrot and a stick come from without.

I mean, what you're doing is you're giving people freedom.

I mean, I don't think that freedom is a carrot.

Freedom is, I think, qualitatively different.

It allows people to be self-motivated.

They're not chasing after something that you're dangling in front of them.

what you're doing is that you're in some ways giving up control.

And there are a lot of managers out there who think that their job is to control people.

And I think in the industrial age or even in the information age when people are doing simple work, when they're turning the same screw the same way, or they're answering calls at a call center, or they are adding up columns of figures, that maybe control makes some sense.

But when fewer people are doing that,

and they're inevitably forced into doing things that require more innovation and creativity, giving up control is actually a better strategy.

The problem with that is that managers giving up control face a little bit of a crisis because if they're not controlling people, then what the heck are they doing there?

You know, I think that the question all of us should be asking ourselves in any kind of job is, okay, what the heck are you doing here?

And if you went away, would anybody care?

And would it have any effect on the world?

And if the answer is no, then my hunch is that

you're not going to be around that much longer, and what you're doing isn't all that satisfying.

And if you move into something as difficult as it is that is a little bit more satisfying and actually answers the question that people would care if you went away, then I think you're going to have greater satisfaction and greater job security.

No, but I actually think they do.