Getting people to do their best work, even in trying circumstances, is one of managers’ most enduring and slippery challenges. Indeed, deciphering what motivates us as human beings is a centuries-old puzzle. Some of history’s most influential thinkers about human behavior—among them Aristotle,
Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud, and Abraham
Maslow—have struggled to understand its nuances and have taught us a tremendous amount about why people do the things they do.
Such luminaries, however, didn’t have the advantage of knowledge gleaned from modern brain science. Their theories were based on careful and educated investigation, to be sure, but also exclusively on direct observation.
Imagine trying to infer how a car works by examining its movements (starting, stopping, accelerating, turning) without being able to take apart the engine.
Fortunately, new cross-disciplinary research in fields like neuroscience, biology, and evolutionary psychology has allowed us to peek under the hood, so to speak—to learn more about the human brain. Our synthesis of the research suggests that people are guided by four basic emotional needs, or drives, that are the product of our common evolutionary heritage. As set out by Paul R. Lawrence and
Nitin Nohria in their 2002 book
Driven: How
Human Nature Shapes Our Choices
, they are the drives to acquire (obtain scarce goods, including intangibles such as social status); bond (form connections with individuals and groups); comprehend
(satisfy our curiosity and master the world around us); and defend (protect against external threats and promote justice). These drives underlie everything we do.
Managers attempting to boost motivation should take note. It’s hard to argue with the accepted wisdom—backed by empirical evidence—that a motivated workforce