Reading Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

After mentioning that I was reading Influence to my good friend [cached]Adrienne, she recommended [cached]Drive as my next book. The theme is quickly explained: While there are three different ways to motivate us - biological urges like hunger or sex, external reward & punishment, and intrinsic reward from performing a task - only intrinsic reward can consistently foster creative behavior.

Pink starts out by showing how traditional external motivation - cash bonuses et al. - overly constrain our focus, interfere with creativity, extinguish internal rewards and even lead to unethical behavior (think doctoring sales numbers to meet a bonus target). Only in special …

Reading Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

The theme of [cached]Influence is clear: unable to keep up with the onslaught of information and decisions we fall back to mental shortcuts and learned behavior.

Robert Cialdini orders them into six large groups:

• Reciprocation. Giving a gift or doing a favor makes us much more likely to comply with a subsequent request, even if the favor was unwanted. The same concept applies to making an initial high demand and then "conceding" to a lower one. Example: charities giving you a free gift.
• Commitment and Consistency. We will change our opinions and desires to be in line with our …