Motivation Killed by Rewards

Drive by Daniel Payne

I just finished reading Drive, by Daniel Pink, (conveniently downloaded from my library) and I learned some surprising things about motivation.

The most startling concept was that incentives can actually hurt motivation. At first I didn’t believe this, but as the book went into details I started to see when I lost motivation at different points in my career and life.

Incentives aren’t always bad. The book points out that an incentive offered for a boring, repetitious task will help, but an incentive for a creative task usually hurts.

A creative task, even if it is difficult, is fun.  Think about it - how many people play sudoku? What about the basic puzzle? Think back to when you were a kid - were you involved in a math team, the debate team, or anything that required lots of thought?  While a majority of the population didn’t go so far as to debate or solve complex math problems in their free time - many people have played mind games or contributed to an organization. Ever help with a beach clean up or paint a school?

When something is challenging we enjoy it. It isn’t work until someone says it is work. When I was a kid I wrote newsletter and put together scrap books for a club I was involved in. Now, as a marketer, my job is to do similar things, but now - it is work.

I enjoy writing. I like sharing my thoughts (even if they are bad). Blogging would seem like the perfect activity for me - but someone turned it into work for me. Besides that fact that I organized and wrote for a company blog, I also dabbled in putting my thoughts on the web in my free time. At first I enjoyed it, then my husband, who makes money with travel websites, thought I should put ads on my websites.

At first I thought making a little money from something I enjoyed was a great idea. When the ads first went up, I wrote more. I promoted my website. I worked to make my site more popular so I could get more money from advertising. Then my enthusiasm faded. I had a ‘real’ job. I went to work 5 days a week, sat a computer and worked to promote the company website. Did I really want to spend my free time working? It wasn’t as if I needed the money - sure it helped b/c I was making very little at work, but it wasn’t as if I couldn’t pay my rent.

The financial incentive to do something I enjoyed doing turned my pastime into work. I can’t believe I hadn’t realized this before!

Now, you might be thinking, that this makes sense for your free time, but you still need to give your employees a goal and a prize to make them work a little harder. That isn’t true. Even at the office people enjoy a challenge and will work to achieve the challenge without an extra reward. — They still need their base pay, its just the extra reward that kills the motivation.

I’m not going to really elaborate on this concept - because the book explains it a lot better than I could. It is just a little food for thought.

I’ve been reading books that may (or may not) be helpful to me once I start my MBA. I simply did a Google search and started downloading any recommended books available from my library as an e-pub.

The book I’m currently reading is Freakonomics. I actually read part of this book before - I picked it off my brother-in-law’s (an MBA) bookshelf and scanned through it while he and my husband discussed cars. The book is really interesting, probably not just to a geek like myself, but I think a good number of people would be interested in this book.

Alas, I’ll quit rambling and get to my point. I found one story in the revised and expanded edition that could use a call out - “Making Profits from Incivility on the Roads”. Levitt describes the glee felt when a bunch of cars were pulled over and ticketed for cutting a bunch of people off in a merge lane.

We’ve all waited, however impatiently, to either merge onto or off a highway where another empty road beckons us to illegally speed pass the line of cars and cut someone off seconds before the empty road leads off to some unwanted location.  Most of us have probably been the jerk to pretend we are taking the undesired road only to whip in front of the long trail of waiting cars, ignore the honks and middle fingers as we happily run off to our destination 15 minutes faster.

In Freakonomics, Levitt talks a little about why we actually wait, but his main point is that we (or the police force rather) should do something about it. Now he’s not suggesting new road construction or flying cars, although that would be nice. All he suggests is that the various law enforcement agencies around the nation take a look at what he observed in NYC. Two cops policing a merge lane that is notorious for this speed and cut in routine and ticket all the offenders.

Typically when I pass someone on I-10 getting a ticket I feel either a sense of relief that it wasn’t me or a sense of pity, because they were probably doing 20 plus over and will have a hefty fine. The only time I am happy that the poor shmuck is getting a ticket is when I recognize a car that had recently cut me off. Now, what better way to make a bunch of law-abiding commuters happy than by ticketing the several inconsiderate jerks who are making the good citizens wait another few minutes in traffic than by ticketing these offenders.

Not only would ticketing the bastards lead to happy commuters but it could raise revenue to help expand our roadways and it might just cut back on the crime. It would probably cut back on accidents too!

I’m very anxious to send this wonderful idea to my brother, who happens to be a state highway patrolman, although I’m sure he won’t be nearly as impressed as I was. At least I can get the word out. Maybe one day you’ll see this tactic in your city, and if you aren’t the one getting the ticket, I hope you’ll think of me.