282: How to Motivate People, with Dan Ariely
Coaching for Leaders
Dave Stachowiak
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2017
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dan Ariely: Payoff
Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. His books include Irrationally Yours, Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, and his most recent book, Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations.
Key Points
- The things that motivate us are about accomplishment and achievement, not day-to-day happiness.
- Most people realize that they themselves are not truly motivated by money, but they still assume other people are completely motivated by it.
- Figure out a way to pay people that adds to the development of a long-term relationship, not a short-term transactional one.
- It is important to find a way to connect people’s jobs to the final outcome of their work, because many people don’t feel connected to their organization’s main purpose.
Resources Mentioned
- Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations* by Dan Ariely
- Predictably Irrational* by Dan Ariely
- Drive* by Daniel Pink
- Dan Ariely’s website
Book Notes
Download my highlights from Payoff in PDF format (free membership required).
Related Episodes
- The Surprising Truth About Influencing Others, with Daniel Pink (episode 84)
- Create the Best Place to Work, with Ron Friedman (episode 181)
- What to Do When Somebody Quits, with Molly Moseley (episode 251)
- New Management Practices of Leading Organizations, with David Burkus (episode 253)
- Employee Engagement With Management 3.0, with Jurgen Appelo (episode 276)
Discover More
Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | A lot of organizations and even some of us assume that the chief way to motivate employees is with money. |
| 0:09.0 | On today's episode, Behavioral economist Dan Aerelli teaches us what the research says about how to motivate people |
| 0:17.8 | to do their best work. |
| 0:19.9 | This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 282. |
| 0:24.2 | Produced by Innovate Learning, |
| 0:26.7 | Maximizing Human Potential. |
| 0:30.0 | Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is coaching for leaders and I'm your |
| 0:38.4 | host Dave Stahoviac. Leaders aren't born. They're made. And this weekly show gives you access to the practical |
| 0:46.4 | wisdom that will empower you to become a better leader. And I'm really glad that you joined |
| 0:52.4 | today's conversation because motivation |
| 0:55.5 | is a topic that I think almost every leader thinks about each day if not even |
| 1:01.6 | articulates each day as a core competency that they need to be able to do |
| 1:06.2 | well in order to get results for themselves, for the people around them, and of course for the |
| 1:11.9 | organization. And I'm really |
| 1:13.9 | thrilled to be talking to someone today who is an expert on human behavior |
| 1:18.4 | economics and has a new book out on motivation someone I have been following for a long time and has absolutely influenced a lot of my behavior in not only my professional work but also the things I do personally as well. |
| 1:31.0 | And that is Dan Aurelli. Dan does research in |
| 1:34.5 | behavior economics and tries to explain it in plain language. He is the |
| 1:39.7 | James B Duke professor of psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, |
| 1:45.0 | and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. |
| 1:49.0 | He's a three-time New York Times best-selling author. |
| 1:52.0 | His books include irrational |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dave Stachowiak, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dave Stachowiak and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.