Book of the week: Drive by Daniel Pink

(Riverhead, $26.95)

The “consistently upbeat” message in Daniel Pink’s Drive is one we “would all love to believe,” said Philip Delves Broughton in The Wall Street Journal. Businesses, says Pink, are finally figuring out that employees aren’t motivated by money alone. With the likes of Google, 3M, and Best Buy leading the way, companies are tossing quotas and time clocks and giving workers autonomy. Pink’s hypothesis that employees are driven by more than just a paycheck is “hardly new,” said The Economist. Management gurus have been debating the merits of carrots and sticks since the early 20th century. But man cannot exist on intrinsic rewards alone—and, in fact, the same companies that Pink holds up as pioneers in this new school of management are also “highly skilled” at using explicit, monetary rewards to recruit top talent and increase productivity. As they should be: Companies that are too tight-fisted “risk lumbering themselves with sluggish dullards.”

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