Paul R. Lawrence - Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices (J-B Warren Bennis Series)

Advance Praise for Driven

"Darwin with an MBA. In this seminal work, Lawrence and Nohria combine their world-leading knowledge of organizational behavior with a deep understanding of our evolved human nature. Both managers and theorists will learn from this wide-ranging opus sure to change the way we view the bipedal ape in the corner office. "

-TERRY BURNHAM, coauthor, Mean Genes

"This book provides a fundamental, controversial, and wonderful explanation of human nature. It provokes you to think more deeply and broadly about what drives people and their institutions. "

-ANDREW H. VAN DE VEN, president, Academy of Management, and professor, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota

A stunning, pathbreaking view of the natural biological impulses underlying human behavior and guiding organizational systems. A succinct, pungent case for the coevolution of biology and culture in forming human nature. Tom Peters, move over "

-WILLIAM C. FREDERICK, author, Values, Nature, and Culture in the American Corporation

DRIVEN

DRIVEN

How HUMAN NATURE
SHAPES
OUR CHOICES

PAUL R. LAWRENCE

NITIN NOHRIA

FOREWORD BY E. 0. WILSON

JOSSEY-BASS
A Wiley Imprint
www.josseybass.com

Copyright 2002 by Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria. All rights reserved. Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 www.jossevbass.com

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lawrence, Paul R. Driven : how human nature shapes our choices / Paul R. Lawrence, Nitin Nohria ; foreword by E. 0. Wilson. p. cm. "A Warren Bennis book." Includes bibliographical references and index. IS13N 0-7879-6385-2 (alk. paper) 1. Motivation (Psychology) I. Nohria, Nitin, 1962- 11. Title. BF503 .1.39 2002b 153.8-dc2l 2002008889 FIRST EDITION PB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Xiii

xvii

xix

PART ONE

BRIDGING GAPS

SETTING THE STAGE FOR UNDERSTANDING HUMAN NATURE

PART Two

THE FOUR DRIVES BEHIND HUMAN CHOICES

PART THREE

THE DRIVES IN ACTION

HOW HUMAN NATURE WORKS IN CONTEXT

PART FOUR

HUMAN NATURE AND SOCIETY

FIGURES AND TABLE

EDITORS NOTE

s an editor and writer, I'm always on the lookout for a perfect -book. This one, written by two distinguished Harvard Business School professors, two generations apart in age and centuries apart culturally, is as close as it gets to fitting that bill. I am equally thrilled and proud to have Driven in the Warren Bennis Signature Series-where we attempt to publish works at "an angle to conventional thought."

In this book, Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria provide a thorough, integrated, and complete four-factor framework of human nature based on a stunning synthesis of the biological and social sciences. I could stop now-hut as the TV commercials say, there's "much, much more." Among other attributes, it is a totally original work, applying the truths of one domain, the highly sophisticated biological and neurological sciences, to another, the embryonic and needy organizational sciences. That is a breathtaking achievement. As the authors write in their Preface, they have used the "petri dish" of human organizations as an especially fecund venue to test their ideas.

There is one other huge reason that you, the reader, will soon, I hope, come to agree with my attribution of perfection. When you dig in and begin to understand the four-drive framework of human nature, I doubt that you will ever look at your organization, your work group, your world, your family in the same way. Or yourself, for that matter. I also doubt that you will cling to or be content with a simplified hegemony of one basic Uber Alles motive anymore; the sort of stuff we read in the pages of economic texts that venerate acquisition and self-interest exclusively or in the classic Freudian writings that elevate the psychosexual drive to the exclusion of others, or certainly in the faux-heroic pages of Ayn Rand.

What Lawrence and Nohria are after, and to a great extent achieve, is a unified theory of human nature based on four basic drives. In a nutshell, they conclude that all humans have a persistent drive to acquire objects, experiences, money, and so on to improve their status relative to others. Acquisition. But add to that, three other equally important drives: the need to bond with others in long-term, caring, committed relationships. Social Networks. The need to learn and make sense of the world around them. Inquiry. And, finally, the need to defend one's loved ones and resources from harm. Safety. Getting. Loving. Learning. Defending.

The authors proceed to demonstrate the scientific sources for the four-drive theory, how the drives are deployed in everyday life, and how understanding them will illuminate the darkness of our everyday lives.

One last, parting shot about a "perfect book." The Nobel Laureate physicist James Franck once said that he always recognized a good idea because of the feeling of terror that seized him. You'll soon see what I mean.