Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices

Harvard Business School professors Lawrence and Nohria here present a sociobiological theory of motivation, claiming that humans possess four basic drives to acquire, to bond, to learn, and to defend. What makes their theory novel is the way they apply it to the workplace. The authors use historical case studies to show that successful organizations are those that give their employees opportunities to fulfill all of these drives, while those that fulfill only the drive to acquire are ultimately less stable. Examples of both types of organizations are provided. The authors are well versed in sociobiology, and their four-drive theory makes intuitive sense. There are, however, a number of competing drive theories, from Freud's sexual drive and death urge to Steven Reiss's 16-drive theory. The authors acknowledge that the numbers and exact nature of our drives need further exploration and provide suggestions for research projects that would verify their hypotheses. Though this book is accessible to the lay reader or undergraduate, its narrow subject area recommends it mainly to academic libraries. Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA

Product Description
A touchstone for understanding how we behave on the job
"This is a stimulating and provocative book in bringing together important ideas from different fields, and, thereby, giving us a whole new slant on 'human nature.'" —Edgar H. Schein, Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and Senior Lecturer, MIT

In this astonishing, provocative, and solidly researched book, two Harvard Business School professors synthesize 200 years of thought along with the latest research drawn from the biological and social sciences to propose a new theory, a unified synthesis of human nature. Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria have studied the way people behave in that most fascinating arena of human behavior—the workplace—and from their work they produce a book that examines the four separate and distinct emotive drives that guide human behavior and influence the choices people make: the drives to acquire, bond, learn, and defend. They ultimately show that, just as advances in information technology have spurred the New Economy in the last quarter of the twentieth century, current advances in biology will be the key to understanding humans and organizations in the new millennium.





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