Quotes from Daniel H. Pink

If you're a boss, understand these two patterns and allow people to protect their peak

lunch (not breakfast) is the most important meal of the day

about 48 percent of GE's software is developed in India.

Economists studied what people did, rather than what we said, because we did what was best for us.

Fully detached beats semidetached.

bringing our understanding of motivation into the twenty-first century is more than an essential move for business. It's an affirmation of our humanity.

The Regret Optimization Framework holds that we should devote time and effort to anticipate the four core regrets: foundation regrets, boldness regrets, moral regrets, and connection regrets. But anticipating regrets outside these four categories is usually not worthwhile

A sense of autonomy has a powerful effect on individual performance and attitude.

You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation,   you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon   making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading,   wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function.   How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look.   —W. H. Auden

3. Study self-compassion.

But the truth is different. You're much more likely to have a Silver Emma moment than a Bronze Borghini one. When researchers have tracked people's thoughts by asking them to keep daily diaries or by pinging them randomly to ask what's on their mind, they've discovered that If Onlys outnumber At Leasts in people's lives—often by a wide margin.[7] One study found that 80 percent of the counterfactuals people generate are If Onlys.

Does your boss allow you to do your best work?

For routine tasks, which aren't very interesting and don't demand much creative thinking, rewards can provide a small motivational booster shot without the harmful side effects.

The course of human history has always moved in the direction of greater freedom. And there's a reason for that—because it's in our nature to push for it

Every circumstance in which we try to move others by definition involves another human being. Yet in the name of professionalism, we often neglect the human element and adopt a stance that's abstract and distant.

The best predictor of success, the researchers found, was the prospective cadets' ratings on a noncognitive, nonphysical trait known as "grit

Type I behavior has an incremental theory of intelligence, prizes learning goals over performance goals, and welcomes effort as a way to improve at something that matters.

We know—if we've spent time with young children or remember ourselves at our best—that we're not destined to be passive and compliant. We're designed to be active and engaged. And we know that the richest experiences in our lives aren't when we're clamoring for validation from others, but when we're listening to our own voice—doing something that matters, doing it well, and doing it in the service of a cause larger than ourselves.

Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the results of intense practice for a minimum of 10 years."11 Mastery—of sports, music, business—requires effort (difficult, painful, excruciating, all-consuming effort) over a long time (not a week or a month, but a decade).

Sawyer Effect: A weird behavioral alchemy inspired by the scene in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in which Tom and friends whitewash Aunt Polly's fence. This effect has two aspects. The negative: Rewards can turn play into work. The positive: Focusing on mastery can turn work into play.

E-mail response time is the single best predictor of whether employees are satisfied with their boss

The consulting firm McKinsey & Co. estimates that in the United States, only 30 percent of job growth now comes from algorithmic work, while 70 percent comes from heuristic work.9

According to a cluster of recent behavioral science studies, autonomous motivation promotes greater conceptual understanding, better grades, enhanced persistence at school and in sporting activities, higher productivity, less burnout, and greater levels of psychological well-being.3

Now, once a quarter, the company sets aside an entire day when its engineers can work on any software problem they want—only this time, "to get them out of the day to day," it must be something that's not part of their regular job.