When you stop and think, you might realize that much of our world is motivated by incentives. Salary raises, getting our ideal body image, keeping up a good public image as well as everything else in life. You even hear about reality TV shows where people get rewarded or punished depending on if they hit a weight goal. So do incentives really work? Or have we been lied to our whole lives?
Does More Money = Better Performance? – 2:30
In the West, we hear about the crazy wage gap behind Fortune 500 CEOs and those at the bottom of the ladder. Does high compensation actually create better performance though? Are all these incentive based bonuses worth it? You can hear the answer straight from the horse’s mouth, because those Fortune 500 CEOs have something to admit.
Why Don’t Incentives Work? – 4:10
What are the dark sides to incentives? Rather than helping a company increase its performance, incentives can actually weaken a company. And if you want to be more productive, there is a limit to what incentives can help you with. From thinking we have to suffer to get rewarded to our brains not working as well, incentives can do a lot more harm than good.
What We Are Taught To Believe In – 9:11
We were raised in to believe in the America Dream. That means sacrificing to get what we want. Or at least what we think we want. This also includes getting more responsibility at work. Have you ever encountered a situation where you were told to deal with it because all the suffering you’re going through now will pay off in the future? That kind of extrinsic motivation absolutely kills job performance and innovation.
The Secret Sauce To Making Incentives Work – 13:43
Most incentive based plans are too shallow. They miss the real point of change. However that doesn’t mean incentives aren’t entirely worthless. They can get you started. But what about what keeps you going? When you incorporate that, along with a few other handy tricks I discovered, it turns out there are ways to motivate you with incentives.
References:
- Do Incentives Work? The Perceptions of Senior Executives From Thirty Countries
- When and Why Incentives (Don’t) Work to Modify Behavior
- Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work
- Can financial incentives motivate us to create lasting healthy habits?
- ReLife
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