News » Motivation: Moving Beyond the Carrot and Stick by Dave Lim

A blog post by Dave Lim - Consultant. Reposted from his blog site Good Chaos.

Earlier this year I came across a really interesting and inspiring TED talk by Dan Pink, exploring the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and the resulting effects on productivity and employee satisfaction. I’ve been thinking about it in the context of my own working experience and I think that there is a lot of value to be realised by re-examining the way we attempt to motivate and engage our people.

Extrinsic Motivation

Traditional motivational models are based largely around extrinsic motivators, which come from outside the person and/or the task. They can be positive (such as the offer of a reward) or negative (such as the threat of punishment). Extrinsic motivation seems to work well for tasks that are repetitive or procedural (such as following well-defined instructions to construct a model), but when used with tasks requiring creativity or initiative they actually tend to lead to a decrease in productivity (in terms of both time to execute and the quality of the outcome).

Intrinsic Motivation

In contrast, intrinsic motivators stem from qualities that are inherent in the task or activity itself, such as the feeling of enjoyment or achievement you get from doing something interesting or important. Some commonly discussed intrinsic motivators are:

• Feeling like what you are doing is important – This may be important to the team, project, company or the world at large.

• Doing something you find challenging – We lean when we are pushed out of our comfort zone – it keeps us interested and increases our feeling of self-worth and value.

• Doing something you find interesting – A no brainer. All jobs will have aspects that people wont enjoy, but overall if people don’t find their jobs interesting then they will be unhappy, unproductive, have little investment in the outcome and be more likely to make mistakes.

• People Over Process – If you’ve gone to the trouble to find and hire smart and creative people, don’t micro manage them or provide overly prescriptive or restrictive processes or working constraints. You don’t have to go all the way of a Results Only Working Environment (ROWE), and you do have to keep abreast of progress, but if you put roadblocks in your people’s way you double your own work and stifle the very qualities that you hired them for in the first place.

• Trust and loyalty – Trust and loyalty are things you earn, and they are payed back in kind.

• Feeling appreciated, valued and recognised – Companies always seem to get this one wrong. It isn’t about having grandiose “Employee of the Month” type recognition programs, but rather about meaningful and honest displays of appreciation and recognition. People contribute to the enterprise in a hundred little different ways every day, and they should be recognised in the same way. Your demeanour as a leader can make someone feel valued and important (as it can also have the opposite effect). If someone works late to get over a deadline – buy them something to eat afterwards. If someone makes an improvement suggestion, make sure that their name is noticeably attached to the idea as it is passed further up the chain. If you’re waiting until some future point to make some big gesture then chances are it’s probably already too late – you’ve already lost them.

Intrinsic motivators do have a noticeable effect with productivity in creative tasks, and also add additional value in terms of job satisfaction, engagement and loyalty. It is also worth bearing in mind that the use of extrinsic motivators can actually have the effects of reducing intrinsic motivation in your people, by creating a mindset that selects and prioritizes based on the existence or value of a reward (or fear of a punishment).

The Myth of Salary

While we’re on the topic of motivators, let’s get the myth of the value of salary out of the way. Many companies treat salary as the beginning and end of the value discussion, but in my experience this is a red herring. The kind of people you really want to hire will seldom stay in a job they don’t enjoy because of the pay (though the ones you don’t often will). Being paid well is necessary, but not sufficient as a motivator – by which I mean that it is a box to tick when you decide to accept a job, but it is seldom cited as motivating factor (and dissatisfaction with salary can often actually be a de-motivating factor). Pay people the right amount and just get it the hell off the table.

Change is Hard

Now there is nothing new about these concepts, so why is it that many businesses still seem pathologically fixated on the used of the Carrot and the Stick? I very much doubt that there is a simple answer to this, but I suspect that a large part of the problem has to do with risk aversion and fear of change. Extrinsic motivation is determined and controlled by the enterprise and it’s a pretty big change for an organisation to invert this to put trust and control in the hands of the employees. In a lot of cases, this might even be justified, as by applying extrinsic motivators in the past, companies may have actually selected and supported people with the kinds of mindsets and behaviours that are not actually well suited or conditioned to an intrinsic model. Cultural momentum in an organisation is certainly not something to be taken lightly, and in times of financial hardship it can be hard to sell the expense of investing in a major cultural and organisational paradigm shift which may not immediately yield dramatic or easily quantifiable results.

So, the shift from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation is certainly a challenge for business. It requires a total change in the way the enterprise approaches it’s remuneration, structure and culture; and it bears a not insignificant amount of risk.

Having said that, do it anyway.

Because the ultimate value of a business can be seen as the sum of the skills, efforts and dedication of the people who make it up. Happy, engaged, talented, creative people are rare – you can’t buy them, but if you create the right environment, maybe you can grow them yourself.

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