Seven Reasons Carrots & Sticks (Often)

The starting point for any discussion of motivation in the workplace is a simple fact of life: People have to earn a living. If employee compensation isn't adequate or equitable, the focus will be on the unfairness of the situation. Without fairness in baseline compensation you'll get very little motivation at all.

But once we're past that threshold, carrots and sticks can achieve precisely the opposite of their intended aims. Rewards can transform an interesting task into a drudge. They can turn play into work. Traditional "if-then" rewards can give us less of what we want. They can:

- Extinguish intrinsic motivation,
- Diminish performance,
- Crush creativity, and
- Crowd out good behavior.
- Encourage cheating, shortcuts and unethical behavior
- Become addictive, and
- Foster short-term thinking.

These are the bugs in our current operating system. For those driven by intrinsic motivation - the drive to do something because it is interesting, challenging, and absorbing - is essential for high levels of creativity.

Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy. But goals imposed by others - sales targets, quarterly returns, standardized test scores, etc. - can sometimes have dangerous side effects.

The problem with making an extrinsic reward the only destination that matters is that some people will choose the quickest route there, even if it means taking the low road.

In contrast, when the reward is the activity itself - deepening learning, delighting customers, doing one's best - there are no shortcuts. The only route to the destination is the high road.

The Special Circumstances When They Do Carrots and sticks aren't all bad. They can be effective for rule-based routine tasks - because there's little intrinsic motivation to undermine and not much creativity to crush. You'll increase your chances of success using rewards for
routine tasks if you:

- Offer rationale for why the task is necessary. A job that is not inherently interesting can become more meaningful if it's a part of a larger purpose.

- Acknowledge that the task is boring.

- Allow people to complete the task their own way (autonomy).

For non-routine conceptual tasks, rewards are more perilous - particularly those of the "if-then" variety.

But "now that" rewards - non-contingent rewards given after the task is complete - can sometimes be okay for more creative work. If tangible rewards are given unexpectedly to people after they have finished a task, the rewards are less likely to be experienced as the reason for doing the task and are thus less likely to be detrimental to intrinsic motivation.

You'll do even better for rewarding non-routine, creative work if you follow two more guidelines:

- Consider non-tangible rewards. Praise and positive feedback are much
less corrosive than cash and trophies.

- Provide useful information. Give people meaningful information about their work. The more feedback focuses on specifics and the more praise is about effort and strategy rather than about achieving a particular outcome - the more effective it can be.