Shadowing Dan Pink

Summary

Dan Pink argues that familiar reward-and-punishment approaches can be poorly suited to work requiring creativity. He builds his case around the candle problem, where solving the task means seeing a box as something more than its usual function. Experiments he describes distinguish straightforward tasks from problems that require a less obvious insight. His proposed alternative emphasizes intrinsic motivation, with fair pay as a foundation and greater room for self-directed work.

Key points, in order

1. In the first candle-problem experiment Pink describes, offering performance rewards made participants slower. When the materials were arranged to make the solution more obvious, rewards helped instead. He attributes the difference to incentives narrowing attention.
2. He cites additional studies to support his claim that larger rewards can impair performance on some cognitive tasks. His criticism is aimed at applying the same incentive assumptions indiscriminately across different kinds of work.
3. The three elements of his alternative are autonomy, mastery and purpose: directing one's activity, improving at meaningful work and contributing to something larger. The talk develops autonomy in the most detail.
4. Examples include independent project time at software companies and workplaces organized around results rather than attendance. Pink also contrasts paid encyclopedia production with voluntary participation, concluding that organizations should better align their practices with the motivation research he presents.

Five useful phrases to practise

Choose a caption line to open Repeat mode. Listen, then say it after the speaker.

1. 2:46 The key is to overcome what's called functional fixedness.
2. 5:15 If you look at the science, there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.
3. 12:41 Autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives.
4. 12:44 Mastery: the desire to get better and better at something that matters.
5. 13:22 But if you want engagement, self-direction works better.

Based on the video’s captions. Original video: The puzzle of motivation | Dan Pink | TED · TED.

Everyday phrases from this video

• take a look

• Level: B2
• Accent: American
• Length: 19 min · 257 lines to practise
• Speed: about 149 words a minute (an average pace)
• Words: about 2,720; the talk asks 21 questions
• Timing: Sada measures how far behind the speaker you are on every line

What to focus on in this talk

A lawyer’s delivery with dramatic pauses: “I need to make a confession at the outset here.” In “To put it mildly, I didn’t do very well”, the t in “put it” becomes a soft d-like sound, so the two words run together.

What this talk trains

Dan Pink speaks for about 19 minutes: roughly 2,720 words in 257 caption lines. The pace stays fairly even, about 152 words a minute in the first quarter and 158 in the last. Overall it is faster than 22 of the other 66 talks on Sada. Its sentences average 12.2 words, no longer than the middle of the library (14.3), and 15.7% of its words fall outside the 3,000 most common English words (library middle: 12.9%). It asks 21 questions, so there is plenty of question intonation to copy. Phrases that fast speech often shortens come up again and again: “want to” (9 times) and “kind of” (6 times).

Lines from across the talk, and what each one trains

One line from each quarter of the talk. Press a line to open it in Sada, ready to record. “Linking” marks words that run together: a word ending in a consonant sound joins the vowel that starts the next one.

1. 3:18 To one group he said, "I'm going to time you to establish norms,

   “going to”: fast speech often shortens it to “gonna” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. Several commas: say it in short chunks first, then as one line.

2. 6:19 Because when the tacks are out of the box, it's pretty easy isn't it?

   “out of”: fast speech often shortens it to “outta”. Listen for whether the speaker does here. A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it.

3. 10:37 Is this some kind of touchy-feely socialist conspiracy going on here?

   “kind of”: fast speech often shortens it to “kinda”. Listen for whether the speaker does here. A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it.

4. 15:31 They don't have to be in the office at a certain time, or any time.

   “have to”: fast speech often shortens it to “hafta” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. Linking: say “at a”, “or any” without a break between the words.

Words that keep coming up

Words outside the 3,000 most common English words that Dan Pink uses more than once. The number is how often each is said. Look up any you don’t know, then press it to practise the line where it first comes up.

• reward ×21
• candle ×13
• autonomy ×10
• motivator ×8
• motivation ×7
• experiment ×6
• incentive ×5
• intrinsic ×5

How the pace changes through the talk

The fastest minute starts at 13:59 (about 180 words a minute): practise that minute once the rest feels easy. The slowest starts at 8:07 (about 117): a good minute to warm up with.

Measured from the caption timing, so the numbers are close, not exact.

How the talk opens: press any line to practise it

1. 0:13 I need to make a confession at the outset here.
2. 0:15 A little over 20 years ago, I did something that I regret,
3. 0:21 something that I'm not particularly proud of.
4. 0:25 Something that, in many ways, I wish no one would ever know, but here I feel kind of obliged to reveal.
5. 0:34 In the late 1980s, in a moment of youthful indiscretion, I went to law school.
6. 0:45 In America, law is a professional degree: after your university degree, you go on to law school.

How to practise this talk

1. Warm up on the slowest minute (from 8:07) or on the opening lines above.
2. Then take the chosen lines above one at a time: a shortened phrase, a line said in chunks, a question, linked words.
3. On each line, press Record and say it after Dan Pink (Repeat) or along with them (Shadow), then open Compare and go again until every word is green.
4. Save the fastest minute (from 13:59, about 180 words a minute) for last.
5. At one minute a day you finish the whole talk in about 19 days, and Sada shows your first try against your latest.

More talks to practise

• Steve Jobs — Stanford Commencement Address (2005) (B2 · 154 words a minute · same level)
• Brené Brown — The Power of Vulnerability (B2 · 154 words a minute · same level)
• Jill Bolte Taylor — My Stroke of Insight (B1–B2 · 149 words a minute · same accent)
• Adam Grant — How to Stop Languishing and Start Finding Flow (B2–C1 · 149 words a minute · same accent)

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