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85 www.hplusmagazine.com The only surprising truth about Daniel h. Pink's undercooked attempt to mimic gladwellian generalizations is that this yale-educated charlatan seriously expects rational human beings to pony up twenty-seven hard-earned bucks for a book with more than fifty pages devoted to something called "The Type I Tookit." Toolkit. Those two syllables conjure up a pleasant oversize tackle box with shiny new instruments that enable the human spirit, not a brown bag lunch where one's inner Neanderthal gnaws upon rotting meat reinforcing the chewing points. Pink commands us to study "6 Business Thinkers Who Get It." One such celebrated hack is the late Peter Drucker, lauded by Pink for writing "an astonishing 41 books," as if Drucker's prolificity atoned for his phony guessing games. We are given a glossary because "a new approach to motivation requires a new vocabulary for talking about it." But why should getting in touch with our inner drive require a new lingua franca? And why should our perfectly respectable impulses be enhanced by something Pink refers to as a Motivation 2.0 Operating System? "Toolkit" is not a word to be used lightly. It's a word that should get us fired up over who gets to use the steel square or buff down the cabinet shelving. Failing these noble constructive tasks, "toolkit" might get us running down to a hardware store to purchase a screwdriver ideal for picking the lock just after our landlord has changed it. That's the kind of "toolkit" and "Type I behavior" that unemployed Americans are probably thinking about right now. This book is not for them. The working stiff simply doesn't factor into Pink's equation, which he naively insists is "an affirmation of our humanity." There isn't a single barista who would be given the luxury of "20 Percent Time," a principle employed by Google that permits its engineers to spend one day a week fixing existing products and developing entirely new applications such as Gmail and Google News. While "20 Percent Time" does take Casual Fridays a few degrees further, if one's extracurricular labor is seized by a corporation for maximum profit, how is the individual's labor enhanced and rewarded? After all, Paul Buchheit was the lead developer for Gmail, but we're not using "Paul Buchheit's Gmail," "PaulMail," or even "Bmail." And cash only takes us so far. Pink's wonderful hypocrisy is that he advocates autonomy in the workplace while suggesting that people secretly want to be held accountable for their work. But he doesn't understand that accountability involves sitting through pointless meetings and filling out TPS reports — two regular horrors at odds with the drive to make cool stuff for humanity. Pink has the temerity to bring up Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow, applying this tendency for people to get lost in a collective activity to a dubious example of Ericsson vice president Stefan Falk swapping yearly performance reviews for six micromanaged meetings a year. Flow isn't necessarily the same when the guy in charge of your job security is constantly looking over your shoulder. Pink seems to have no understanding of how these work-related power dynamics often silence innovators. Alfred Hitchcock didn't have cube farms in mind when he informed an actor that his motivation was his paycheck, but it's an obvious financial incentive that Pink skims over. While Pink is quite capable of regurgitating textbook psychology, such as Karl Duncker's 1945 candle problem, he's incapable of understanding that not every workplace environment can be as worker-friendly as Patagonia. Pink praises the "minimal turnover" at zappos that he claims has arisen because of company culture. But 8% of zappos' workers were laid off last November. It doesn't take a Yalie to understand why zappos workers have clung to their jobs like splintering driftwood in a dangerous river. If you're the type to feel a sad intensity kick in just before delivering a PowerPoint presentation, then Dan Pink's your man. If you're too lazy to surf Wikipedia for around 20 minutes, then Pink is all too happy to automate your thinking process. Reading this book is a bit like taking a remedial driving lesson taught by a fourth-rate stand-up comedian after nabbing a ticket. Edward Champion is a writer in New York. He produces The Bat Segundo Show (http://www.batsegundo.com), a quirky and comprehensive interview program. Additional cultural musings can be experienced at http://www.edrants.com. You're such a toolkit Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Daniel H. Pink Riverhead $26.95 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Daniel Pink http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-about-Motivates/dp/1594488843/ resources REvIEWED BY EDWARD CHAMPION alfred hitchcock didn't have cube farms in mind when he informed an actor that his motivation was his paycheck, but it's an obvious financial incentive that Pink skims over. Gally possesses a body more powerful than any she has ever known — and her brain, the last bit of her original flesh, has been replaced with a chip. Yet, Nova interrogates her as he always has: what will she do with her strength? Fully a machine, how will she manifest her humanity? It's easy to see why Battle Angel intrigues Cameron. He is a great portraitist of strong women. We can only hope that her fans' eagerness to see his conception of Gally won't abort his desire to conceive. Ray Huling is a freelance journalist living in Boston. He is working on a book about shellfishing in Rhode Island.