I’ve just finish a podcast from TED Radio Hour titled The Money Paradox. The title intrigued me. Along the way, there are reference to TED talks from Daniel Pink: The Puzzle of Motivation. In the show, Dan Pink, in his own word, is not telling a story, but building a case. Watch the 18 minutes show below.

Alright, if you skip the show, here is the summary. Dan Pink build a case that money will only improve productivity only if the task in hand have a clear instruction and clear expectation. In other words, money will improve productivity for task that doesn’t involve thinking out of the box. For task that involves creative thinking, task that require someone to think out of the box, money have negative impact to productivity.

But, we all need money, right? How come someone be creative if they are not being paid? Well, here is the catch. Yes, everyone need money to put food on the table and pay bills, to go on vacation and buy expensive stuff. That’s what motivate people to go to work. But once these needs is fulfilled, the focus of more money will destroy further creative thinking. The TED talk also present a case study about this in India.

So, I think the business environment we are all in today demands more and more creativity from us. I worked in IT and telecommunication industry, and we are being asked to be more creative and thinking out of the box each day. If you want to succeed in this environment, you shouldn’t not entirely making your career decision only based on money.

Unless you prefer to do a more routine job with clear instruction, with risk that someday, this routing job that you are doing will be replaced by machine, or computer.