Explore Quotes by Daniel H. Pink

I really think that in the media world that we live in now, especially for writers, it has to be a conversation. With very few exceptions, it can't be this one-way, 'Here I am on the mountaintop preaching to all of you great unwashed readers in hopes of saving you.' It doesn't work that way.

Clinton was super attuned to other people to the point where he talks about feeling other people's pain. Clinton is probably the most buoyant, resilient person in American political history.

If you look at the very best presidents, the most effective presidents, they were always decent salespeople. Ronald Reagan was an extremely effective salesman, very tuned to the people he was selling to, very clear in what he was selling, very resilient and buoyant.

Too many people hold a very narrow view of what motivates us. They believe that the only way to get us moving is with the jab of a stick or the promise of a carrot. But if you look at over 50 years of research on motivation, or simply scrutinize your own behavior, it's pretty clear human beings are more complicated than that.

To some extent, the act of creation and the act of selling are hard to disentangle. If you create something, whether it's a painting or a company, I think if you care about it, you have some obligation to go out and tell people about it.

One of the things is, in the writing process, if you do it enough, you have a sense of where you are. I didn't have that with the first book as I was writing it. Now, as I write books, I have a sense of where I am. Unfortunately, the sense of where I am is usually behind.

It's a world where anyone you're selling to probably has just as much information as you, has lots of choices, and all kinds of ways to talk back. And so, the low road is less and less of an option. You actually have to take the high road: Be more honest, more direct, more transparent.

Too often, when you are close to people in power, you're trying to make them happy; you're trying to tell them what they want to hear. But I find that really good leaders don't want that. They want the truth. And you do them a service, and yourself a service, by just being honest and straightforward.

When the facts are on your side, there is huge power in pitching with questions. Because questions are active rather than passive. They necessitate a response.

I think there are moral obligations, and I think there are economic transactions. So I think that chores are good; I think that allowances are good. I think combining them is bad.

With 'Free Agent Nation,' I was figuring out how to write a book along with writing the book. Now I think I've kind of, sort of figured out how to write a book a little bit better. But the process remains not that different - slow; laborious; tiny, incremental progress each day, punctuated by feelings of despair and self-loathing.

The point of college is more to acquire skills than to acquire domain knowledge. One of the skills that is going to be most necessary: you have to be able to read with rigor and write with clarity. You have to be able to communicate. To make an argument, whether it's in a written piece or in front of a group of people.

When I got to law school, I didn't do very well. To put it mildly, I didn't do very well. I, in fact, graduated in the part of my law school class that made the top 90% possible.

We have this idea that extroverts are better salespeople. As a result, extroverts are more likely to enter sales; extroverts are more likely to get promoted in sales jobs. But if you look at the correlation between extroversion and actual sales performance - that is, how many times the cash register actually rings - the correlation's almost zero.

It seems the best approach for any venture is a combo platter - Japan's quality-consciousness paired with America's willingness to experiment and (sometimes) fail.

Giving people some kind of control over what they do is important. Human beings don't do their best work under conditions of control.

What entrepreneurs and artists have in common is that they give the world something it didn't know it was missing.

Management did not emanate from nature. Management is not a tree: it's a television set. Somebody invented it. It doesn't mean it's going to work forever. Management is great. Traditional notions of management are great if you want compliance. But if you want engagement, self-direction works better.

Politicians are, in general, receptive to those who make the most noise.

I think that designers and architects need to educate the people who don't quite know what they do and make a strong case for why it's valuable and why it changes the game. I think waiting for people to come around to it just won't do.

One of the best predictors of ultimate success in either sales or non-sales selling isn't natural talent or even industry expertise, but how you explain your failures and rejections.