Self-Determination Theory
The empirical research of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan on what actually drives sustained human motivation — autonomy, relatedness, and competence as universal psychological needs.
Book One · Pre-order now · Releases 2026
Autonomy, Relatedness, Competence, and the Conditions Under Which People Grow
A research-grounded framework for what leadership actually is at the level of human psychology — and how to diagnose, in any given moment, which intervention a person actually needs.
The core argument
Justin Ryan Carver argues the difference is not a matter of personality, style, or rank. It is explained by three human needs that most leaders have never been taught to recognize — autonomy, relatedness, and competence — and by the trust climate that determines whether those needs can be met.
When the needs are supported, people produce, create, connect, and persist. When they are frustrated, people disengage, withdraw, burn out, or leave.
Leadership is the sustained practice of creating conditions in which other people's identities form rather than fragment.
The synthesis
Most leadership books coin proprietary acronyms for borrowed insights and build elaborate frameworks on foundations whose builders go uncredited. The Lost ARC does the opposite. What is original is the integration — a single diagnostic system that asks three questions about any person you lead and produces a usable answer about what that person actually needs from you right now.
The empirical research of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan on what actually drives sustained human motivation — autonomy, relatedness, and competence as universal psychological needs.
Maslow, refined by modern scarcity research and neuroscience — what it takes for a person to move beyond survival and into the kind of work that makes meaning possible.
Mayer, Edmondson, Kim, Dirks, and Zak — on how trust is built, how it collapses, and why it is the climate in which the three needs either flourish or suffocate.
An emerging body of work on leadership as something that can subtract from people, not just fail to add — and a behavioral taxonomy that names what those failures actually look like in practice.
Who it's for
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Pre-order on AmazonAlso in the catalog
A Workplace Comedy About Impossible Tasks
A satirical novel showing what it looks and feels like when the ARC framework is violated — every failure mapping onto a diagnosis the framework names.
Read more The Practice30 Maxims of a Balanced Life
Thirty maxims for the individual who must lead, endure, and stay whole when the systems around them do not cooperate. The personal companion to the organizational diagnosis.
Read more All three booksSee how the three books connect as a single body of work.
The catalog