Driven. . - Bookshelf: Books in Brief - Brief Article - book review

HR Magazine, June, 2002

By Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria Jossey-Bass, 2002

315 pages

List Price: $28

ISBN: 0-7879-5785-2

What motivates people? In Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices, Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria say it boils down to four innate drives that all human beings possess. The authors, professors at the Harvard Business School, identify these as:

* The drive to acquire (attaining possessions of value and positions of status).

* The drive to bond (developing mutual caring commitments with others).

* The drive to learn (making sense of our environment and ourselves).

* The drive to defend (protecting ourselves and our beliefs, resources and loved ones).

These urges are "hard-wired mental modules in the brains of all modern humans," write Lawrence and Nohria. However, this does not mean that everyone is motivated by the same factors. "The drives significantly influence but clearly do not totally determine particular behavors," they say. They identify five contingencies--geography, degree of physical isolation, genetic differences, stages of technology and ideology--as having a profound impact on work personalities.

Despite these differences, the authors theorize that it should be simple to create jobs in which workers can thrive: Design positions that allow employees to acquire, bond, learn and defend. However, they admit, this is more easily said than done. It's common for organizations to overemphasize the achievement of one drive while neglecting others. That's when corporate leaders must jump in to provide hands-on steering. Among steps they can take:

* Balance financial and symbolic rewards for individual achievement and teamwork.

* Encourage bonding by placing groups with interdependent functions near one another.

* Dedicate individuals whose job it is to maintain balanced relationships within and between groups.

The authors say this was the secret behind the vaunted Japanese style of management.