David Zweig's Analysis

In his book, David Zweig argues that many workers gain satisfaction from fulfillment over notoriety. In fact, he argues that today "we are being trained that to seek recognition is a princely value," but he also suggests that some of the most successful people do just the opposite. [1] Pink would at least partially agree that much of the value from work comes internally rather externally. This conflicts, he would also argue, with the age-old idea that employers often find purpose for the average worker to be "a perfectly nice accessory, so long as it didn't get in the way” of making a profit.[2] Both Pink and Zweig attempt with their insights to explain the American cultural norms of individualism and the desire of every worker for fulfilling,

He argues that this operating system which he calls Motivation 1.0, “wasn’t especially elegant, nor was it much different from those of rhesus monkeys, giant apes, or many other animals. But it served us nicely. It worked well until it didn’t.” 1 This is something that Daniel Zweig also agrees with. In his book “ Invisibles: The power of anonymous work in the age of relentless self-promotion”, Zweig explains how recognition is a larger part of today’s society and how it is the only thing that motivates people to do what they want to do. So now that they both agree on what didn’t work, the conflicting ideas lies in each individual solution of what does work. Pink also explains that the current operating system operating today, called Motivation 2.0 and later Motivation 2.1 after including (Herzberg’s motivational theories) is based on the idea that as humans we seek reward and avoid punishment. Pink believes that although “Motivation 2.0 still serves some purposes, it is just deeply unreliable.” He says “ Our current operating system has become far less compatible with and at times down right antagonistic: how we organize what we do, how we think about what we do and how we do what we do” 2 So what these authors actually propose is the real solution and explanation for motivation and furthermore

Zweig explains that recognition and fame is not a new concept brought upon by the Internet era but that it has been around since the era of The Iliad. His piece focuses on how the internet and more specifically social media networks have influenced and advanced the desire and need for fame and self-promotion so much that it motivates us to do what we do. Dan Pink would argue that more than recognition is needed to motivate workers. He believes that pay systems including, benefits are the external things needed to motivate people. Using herzberg motivational factor theory, Pink also believes that people are self motivated and that is when and how you motivate people. That is where both of these concepts for a better workforce contradict each other. If infact people are intrinsically or otherwise self-motivated as Pink believes then it goes against Zweig’s idea that most people do things for the recognition and validation of others. It is my belief that most people are motivated to do work for recognition like Zweig suggest but that self-motivation is also a large part of why they continue to