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Jon R. Katzenbach and Zia Khan
4/06/2010 @ 12:13PM
Money Is Not The Best Motivator
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The old Horatio Alger stories capture the American dream pretty well. Those
who work hard, apply themselves and play fair, they tell us, will be amply
rewarded. Those who avoid responsibility, exploit others and cheat will get
their comeuppance. This notion is at the heart of American
entrepreneurialism and professionalism, and of American artistic and sports
endeavor as well.
So why do people like Jeffrey Skilling and Bernard Madoff get away with so
much for so long? There is no simple answer, but those two were both in it
for the money, it appears, and there is ample evidence to suggest that money
may not be the best way to motivate desirable behavior. In fact, it may be
one of the worst ways.
Most successful entrepreneurs say that their primary motivation has been to
build something lasting, not to make a lot of money. Certainly great
professional leaders like Marvin Bower, who built McKinsey & Co., John
Whitehead, the former Goldman Sachs senior partner, and Supreme Court
Justice John Paul Stevens would tell us that their motivation came from the
work itself, and that the lasting respect of others was far greater than
money as a measure of accomplishment. And very few great artists are in it
for the money. Money is a byproduct, and usually a secondary one at that,
for such achievers.
Emotional sources of motivation are more powerful, and they are best
conveyed informally in an organization through the respect of peers, the
admiration of subordinates, the approval of one’s personal network and
community and the like. Money becomes the default motivator because it is
measurable, tangible and fungible — and trouble strikes when the prospect
of a lot of money becomes the primary goal. That usually feeds a very self-
serving emotion, greed.
What works better than money?
It depends on what kind of motivation you’re after. Money is better at
attracting and retaining people than at influencing their behavior. Those of
us who subscribe to the writings of the authority on motivation Frederick
Herzberg, who died in 2000, believe that the most effective way to motivate
work behavior is by focusing on how people feel about their work itself.
Recent studies by David Rock, an executive coach, and Jeffry Schwartz, a
neuroscientist, have identified several motivators that influence behavior
more effectively than money. For one, people want to elevate their status.
Organizations often assume that the only way to raise an employee’s status
is by a promotion, but status can be enhanced in many less costly ways. The
perception of status increases significantly whenever people are given
credible informal praise for daily tasks rather than waiting for annual
results.
People are also motivated by having autonomy, but more money doesn’t often
equal greater perceived autonomy. In fact, you usually have to give up
autonomy to rise up the compensation ladder. The real heart of autonomy as a
motivator, however, rests with the perception that you are executing your
own decisions without a lot of oversight or rules, which is hardly common in
the corporate world today.
Similarly, feelings of relatedness and fairness are motivators. They are
determined more by informal interactions, social networks and daily
perceptions than by money or formal promotions.
This is not to suggest that money doesn’t motivate. Certainly it encourages
self-serving materialism. But those who rely on money as their sole or
primary motivator are on perilous terrain, particularly if they ignore other
more powerful and emotional sources of human motivation.
A few years ago we did research with elite military units that included the
Navy Seals, the Green Berets and the Marines. Not surprisingly, we found
that money is not what motivates an emotional commitment to such groups. We
also learned that pride in daily training exercises was almost as important
a motivational force as pride in the unit. And the Marines spend 75% of
their military life in training exercises.
The Marines’ boot camp takes 12 weeks while other services take 8. Those 12
weeks are devoted to exercises designed to inculcate the Corps’ emotional
values of honor, courage and commitment. During that arduous period,
recruits are required to do all kinds of anxiety-producing things like leap
off high towers, swim in deep water with full backpack burdens and run miles
up and down hills.
Their drill instructors are master motivators whom they initially hate and
fear. Before long those instructors become aspirational role models who
breed respect, courage and commitment. A drill instructor is up at the crack
of dawn before his recruits, works into the night preparing for the next
day and changes his uniform several times a day. (He always looks the part
of a Marine leader.)
To understand the emotional commitment that drill instructors engender, we
conducted a focus group discussion with some eight recruits 10 weeks into
their program. One of them was a young woman about 5 feet tall who weighed
less than 100 pounds. She looked a bit out of place to us, so at one point
we asked her what had attracted her to the Corps. Her impassioned reply
remains a permanent fixture in our memory: “Gentlemen, the Marines make me
shine — every single day!” That is pride in one’s work at its best, with
money irrelevant.
Over the past five years we have studied many master motivators like that
woman’s drill instructor. We have conducted hundreds of case studies across
dozens of companies. And the results are always the same. Money just doesn
’t matter much. Some use it, most don’t. For those who do, it is but one
small element in a motivational arsenal. Their primary focus is on finding
emotional connections, sources of pride, that they can use to make each and
every person they affect feel good about their daily tasks. And they succeed
no matter how boring, difficult or unpleasant the job may be.
Thus, they instill the kind of emotional commitment that is never self-
serving, never short term and always energizing. Their secret is that they
use informal elements of their organizations — personal networks,
relationships, feelings, values — to counterbalance the formal. The more
you rely on money as your weapon of choice, the more likely you are to
encourage self-serving behavior.
To avoid the money booby-trap remember:
–Emotional commitment dwarfs purely rational compliance every time.
–Money encourages self-serving short-term behaviors better than it
motivates lasting institutional achievement.
–An overreliance on monetary rewards invariably erodes emotional commitment.
–Pride in one’s work itself is what brings on lasting improvement in
behavior.
–The informal elements of motivation are at least as important as the
formal ones.
Jon R. Katzenbach is a senior partner in the New York office of Booz &
Company. Zia Khan is vice president for strategy and evaluation at the
Rockefeller Foundation. They are the authors of Leading Outside the Lines:
How to Mobilize the Informal Organization, Energize Your Team, and Get
Better Results, published in April 2010 by Jossey-Bass.
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发帖数: 661 | 2 99U Insights on making ideas happen
by Bēhance
Leadership
What Motivates Us To Do Great Work?
by Jocelyn K. Glei
608629
What motivates us to do great work? It’s an age-old question. But the age-
old answers – rewards, recognition, money, stability – no longer seem to
suffice. As we’ve shifted to a knowledge-based economy, it turns out that
what drives us has shifted, too.
Recent research reveals that when creative thinking is part and parcel of
your job description, external motivation just doesn’t work. The year-end
bonus, the promotion, the basic dangled carrot approach – these things don
’t inspire better performance.
What really gets creatives fired up is, well, ourselves. That is, intrinsic
motivation. If we can imagine an achievement, see ourselves progressing
toward that goal, and understand that we are gaining new skills and
knowledge, we will be driven to do great work.
In a recent post, science writer Jonah Lehrer cites an interesting study
about “self-talk” – the running commentary we always have going on in our
heads. Fifty-three undergraduate students were divided into two groups and
then challenged to solve anagrams:
“The first group was told to prepare for an anagram-solving task by
thinking, for one minute, about whether they would work on anagrams. This is
the ‘Will I?’ condition, which the scientists refer to as the ‘
interrogative form of self-talk’. The second group, in contrast, was told
to spend one minute thinking that they would work on anagrams. This is the
‘I Will’ condition, or the ‘declarative form of self-talk’. Both groups
were then given ten minutes to solve as many anagrams as possible.”
Contrary to what you might expect, the “Will I?” group solved
significantly more puzzles. The uncertainty created by the question, allowed
the students to decide to challenge themselves, and then excel. Lehrer sums
it up:
“Subsequent experiments by the scientists suggested that the power of the
‘Will I?’ condition resides in its ability to elicit intrinsic motivation.
(We are intrinsically motivated when we are doing an activity for ourselves
, because we enjoy it. In contrast, extrinsic motivation occurs when we’re
doing something for a paycheck or any ‘extrinsic’ reward.) By
interrogating ourselves, we set up a well-defined challenge that we can
master. And it is this desire for personal fulfillment – being able to tell
ourselves that we solved the anagrams – that actually motivates us to keep
on trying.”
In his latest book, Drive, author Daniel Pink debunks the power of external
motivators, and expands on the intrinsic motivators that inspire us to do
great work. Using research from a study out of MIT, Pink argues that
traditional rewards – external motivators like a year-end bonus – only
elicit better performance from people doing rote tasks. But once the barest
amount of brainpower is required, higher financial rewards fail to produce
better work. In fact, they actually inspire worse performance.
For creative thinkers, Pink identifies three key motivators: autonomy (self-
directed work), mastery (getting better at stuff), and purpose (serving a
greater vision). All three are intrinsic motivators. Even a purpose, which
can seem like an external motivator, will be internalized if you truly
believe in it.
A recent Harvard study further reinforces the power of intrinsic motivation.
After tracking 1200 knowledge workers, Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J.
Kramer found that the # 1 motivator for the employees was progress – the
feeling that they were moving forward and achieving a greater goal. They
write:
“On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs,
or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their
emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak. On
days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering
roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are
lowest.”
As creative thinkers, we want to make progress, and we want to move big
ideas forward. So, it’s no surprise that the best motivator is being
empowered to take action.
When it comes to recommendations for creative leaders, Amabile and Kramer
don’t mince words: “Scrupulously avoid impeding progress by changing goals
autocratically, being indecisive, or holding up resources.” In short, give
your team members what they need to thrive, and then get out of the way.
More insights on: Leadership, Motivation
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JOCELYN K. GLEI
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As Editor-in-Chief and Director of 99U, Jocelyn K. Glei leads the 99U in its
mission to provide the “missing curriculum” on making ideas happen. She
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