Make “Carrot and Stick” method of motivating people a thing of the past.
The modern day economy is powered by intrinsic motivation focused on Autonomy , Mastery & Sense of Purpose
Tag: Daniel Pink
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If Newton’s Laws can have limitations why not Motivational principles?
Newton’s Laws have the limitation of constant mass and tend to be less applicable when the mass approaches infinity.
Newton’s Laws have been regarded a bible since time immemorial and hence due to these limitation need to be tweaked to cover all possible scenarios.
Similar to this behavioral physics motivated by Carrot And Sticks rule of motivation has survived the entire Industrial Revolution era but fall flat in modern day of the knowledge worker.
For left brain oriented and factory model related work the motivational law still holds good but when it comes to heuristics and aspects where more and more right brain oriented conceptual work is needed , the motivational aspects need a different treatment leveraging aspects of intrinsic motivation.
These aspects have been very beautifully highlighted by Dan Pink in his book titled Drive.
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“Type I” personalities the need of the hour
Type I personalities who are intrinsically motivated for achieving something larger than themselves are needed now more than ever before.
The following points list out why they outperform the extrinsically motivated and reward driven Type X personalities:
- Modern day right brain oriented work need people to be intrinsically motivated to arrive at results.Left brain oriented work can be stimulated by rewards not right brain oriented work
- Type I personalities always think about the long term whereas Type X personalities are selfish and are concerned with only short term benefits
- Type I behavior is a renewable resource and these are people with an abundant mentality who live to spread motivation as a disease keeping the long term perspective in mind
- Type I behavior is for the long term without paying too much heed to short term gain and failure and hence promotes greater physical and mental well being.
Adopted from Daniel Pink’s book Drive
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Knowing the differences between “Type I” and “Type X” personalities
Adopted from Daniel Pink’s book Drive.
EXtrinsic Motivation is considered the primary driver behind the Carrot and Stick method of motivating people.Reward for doing routine bound work effectively and Punishment for NOT being able to do the same , brings in compliance and is perfect for a factory model kind of work environment.
Hence Type X people are short term oriented and are driven by eXtrinsic rewards in order to get work done.The moment the rewards disappear , the purpose is lost.
As against this the modern day age of infinite game needs more Type I people who are Intrinsically motivated for doing social good without worrying about rewards and other short term gains.
Being intrinsically driven make someone realize benefits for the long term , society in general without having to focus on short term oriented microscopic aspects.
Thus having more Type I personality oriented people is the need of the hour.
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Why is Motivation 3.0 needed in the modern day Infinite Game?
This blogpost throws light on why Motivation 3.0 is so relevant in the modern day of Infinite Game.
The Carrot and Stick method had worked wonders in the age of Industrial revolution and is still popular with organizations who want to instill fear and get work done out of people.
Such a short term oriented mindset seldom stands the test of time.If it relates to driving results in the short term incentives like the “Carrot and Stick” seem to work but this can never be a sustainable solution when it comes to doing something revolutionary.
Hence the Motivation 2.0 mindset prevalent in the Industrial Age needs to be upgraded like and operating system needs to from time to time , in order to motivate people towards achievement of a long term vision or a JUST CAUSE.
The components of AUTONOMY , MASTERY and SENSE of PURPOSE are components of Motivation 3.0 which needs to be part of any employee motivational program in order to get the best out of employees in the modern day Knowledge Worker Age.
The concepts have been adopted from Daniel Pink’s Drive and Simon Sinek’s Infinite Game.
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Motivation 3.0 and its components
Human motivational requirements have evolved starting with Motivation 1.0 during the caveman times wherein the motivational requirements was basic survival needs.
Then came the Industrial Revolution Age and Motivation 1.0 underwent an upgrade to Motivation 2.0 wherein the “reward or punish” or “carrot and stick” method took off and started showing great results for getting work done out of workers in a factory model mode.
In the modern conceptual age of the Knowledge worker the time has come to upgrade Motivation 2.0 to 3.0 since when it comes to right brain oriented tasks , Carrot and Stick methods start giving detrimental results.
Hence the basis of Motivation 3.0 in the modern age are the following three major components to get people intrinsically motivated in order to get the best outcome.
- Autonomy
- Mastery
- Purpose
Adopted from Daniel Pink’s book Drive.
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Why behavioral physics fails to explain prominence of Open Source Software?
During the Industrial Revolution Era , “Carrot & Stick” technique grew in prominence and produced remarkable results.
The rational principle was to reward people for doing the routine bound work efficiently and this reward in turn resulted in increasing efficiency.
On the flip side , punishing people for being inefficient resulted in improvement of efficiency.
This is in line with behavioral physics as well….
In the modern knowledge worker age , Open source software has grown in prominence.Be it Apache , Github , Linux , Wikipedia all these are examples where intrinsically motivated group of programmers have collaborated just for the sole reason of prosperity and benefit of their fraternity without expecting anything in return.
This is thus totally not explainable by behavioral physics and thus proves that adopting Carrot and Stick approach in the modern knowledge worker age can lead to detrimental results.
Adopted from Daniel Pink’s book Drive.
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This analogy between “Motivation” and Computer “Operating System” is fascinating
Daniel Pink’s book drive is a masterclass when it comes to explanation of concepts around human Motivation.
Like a computer operating system needs upgrade over time to safeguard against vulnerabilities and security threats , similarly “Motivational Methods” need to be upgraded over time to give desired results.
For e.g. During Caveman times the need was to stay safe from more powerful wild animals and hence safety acted as the Motivational mantra.
In the Industrial Revolution era , the Motivational methodology needed an upgrade to the “Reward & Punishment” or “Carrot & Stick” method to get the best out of factory workers indulged in mundane routine bound work.
Along similar lines again in the era of Knowledge worker or in the Conceptual age the “Motivational methodology” needs another upgrade to place more emphasis on intrinsic motivation by giving more autonomy to the knowledge worker.
The analogy is truly fascinating.
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Key insight on application of “Carrot and Stick” method
Daniel Pink’s book Drive provides some key insights on the flaws related to the “Carrot and Stick” method which has been so successfully adopted in the Industrial Era.
When applied to left brain oriented work for e.g. development of algorithm or mundane routine bound work done in a factory shop floor this method gives great results.
But when applied in the modern Knowledge Worker Conceptual age where heuristics and Right Brain thinking matter , adoption of this method can lead to very detrimental effects by killing intrinsic motivation.
Having understood this would help us adopt this approach with caution on a case to case basis.
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Seven Deadly Flaws of ‘Carrot & Stick” Method
The seven deadly flaws of the “Carrot and Stick” method are:
- They can extinguish INTRINSIC MOTIVATION
- They can DIMINISH PERFORMANCE
- They can CRUSH CREATIVITY
- They can crowd out GOOD BEHAVIOR
- They can encourage cheating , shortcuts and unethical behavior
- They can become addictive
- They can foster short term thinking
Adopted from the book “Drive” by Daniel Pink