Mastering the art of motivation
Good luck with that. Charisma, like physics’ account of the electromagnetic force, follows a sort of inverse square law. Even for those who have it, its effect diminishes with distance.
Good luck with that. Charisma, like physics’ account of the electromagnetic force, follows a sort of inverse square law. Even for those who have it, its effect diminishes with distance.
Speaking of physical laws and their applicability, inspiring speeches resemble radioactivity — they have a half-life. Following your delivery of even the most inspiring speech, figure employees’ level of inspiration will diminish by half every day that follows.
What else doesn’t work? Financial rewards. Money, in the form of “Great job! Here’s your reward for it!” doesn’t work. Give someone a bonus as a reward for putting forth extra effort and all you’ve done is raise the baseline. A bonus becomes what’s expected, so the next bonus will need to be bigger. Otherwise, the absence of a bonus turns into a demotivator.
And that’s for the employee who received the bonus. For everyone else, who in their own eyes also went above and beyond, not getting a bonus when bonuses are a possibility isn’t merely demotivating. It will tick them right off.
And that’s before you take into account an effect described in Alfie Kohn’s groundbreaking Punished by Rewards: In a deep and fundamental way, financial incentives are insults, because what they communicate is that you think you have to bribe employees to get them to perform well.
To be clear, money does have its place, but only in that it’s used as an expression of gratitude, not as an incentive. Money, that is, is a business’s loudest voice. Saying “thank you” is motivating. Delivering a bonus and explaining that it’s the company’s way of expressing its appreciation?