Traditional theories of motivation have often centred on the ‘carrot and the stick’ idea of rewards for good performance and penalties for poor performance. However, in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, author Daniel H. Pink suggests that humans are also motivated by challenges and the successful progress of tasks.
Motivation 2.0
Pink suggests that human motivation originally was, in its most basic form, the struggle to survive. Humans were motivated by biological urges, such as hunger. As more complex societies evolved, a second driver was identified – the desire to earn rewards and avoid punishment. Pink calls this Motivation 2.0. The ideas behind this method of motivation can be seen in almost any organisation, Pink suggests, and that received wisdom in most workplaces is that ‘the way to improve performance, increase productivity and encourage excellence is to reward the good and punish the bad’.
Grasping Capitalist statue, The Circulation of Money fountain (Aachen, Germany)
Pink proposes that we need to be aware of other, more complex motivational drivers than the simple idea of reward and penalties. He lists seven main factors and the reasons why such ‘carrot and stick’ motivators aren’t always effective in the workplace:
1. They can extinguish intrinsic motivation
Rewards can often reduce motivation by making it seem more like something people have to do rather than want to do. Introducing financial incentives often removes the freedom people experience as they are no longer in control of the task. ‘”If-then” rewards require people to give up some of their autonomy.’
However, while employees would expect to have tasks to complete in the workplace that they may not particularly enjoy, the addition of extra rewards (over and above salary) is likely to shorten their interest in the task and make them unlikely to perform it in future without a reward in place. Though it increases short-term motivation, it damages long-term intrinsic motivation. Employees can come to expect an additional reward every time they complete the task moving forward.
2. They can diminish performance
Established motivational thinking suggests that offering higher rewards leads to better results. However, Pink uses a study by writer Dan Ariely to refute this. In Ariely’s study, three groups were formed to complete certain simple tasks. The first group was offered a small financial incentive for each task completed successfully, the second a slightly larger reward, and the third a considerably larger reward. Ariely found that three performed poorest, despite being offered the largest reward.
Pink’s assertion is that financial incentives can often have a negative effect on motivation. It can cause focus to be lost and change base, intrinsic motivation into a more financially-based motivation.
3. They can crush creativity
By offering incentives, employers can narrow thinking in their employees. They may perform tasks more quickly, but seldom more creatively – the financial implication becomes the most important motivator. This means for tasks in which the method is already in place, rewards can encourage higher performance in the short-term, but do not help to widen thinking.
4. They can crowd out good behaviour
Pink suggests that offering incentives can crowd out a natural desire to ‘do good’. When a reward is offered for completion of a task, it can affect a desire people may have to complete a task based on its own merits, i.e. for altruistic methods or simply because they believe it to be a useful task.
5. They can encourage cheating, shortcuts and unethical behaviour
Rewards can become so attractive to people that they will do everything they can to attain them. The 2008 crisis in banking exemplified this – the huge financial rewards on offer encouraged people within the industry to become reckless in their decision-making and to behave in ways which did not have the long-term interests of the organisations at heart.
By having huge rewards on offer, organisations can provide temptation for employees to achieve targets at all costs. This can mean ethical and legal standards being breached and may result in significant long-term damage to organisations.
6. They can become addictive
Pink suggests that ‘if-then’ motivators are similar to drugs – ‘they provide a delicious jolt of pleasure at first, but the feeling soon dissipates – and to keep it alive, the recipient requires even larger and more frequent doses.’
Only by increasing the rewards on offer can organisations maintain the same level of motivation. However, this is not always financially viable, so employees may start to feel demoralised – the exact opposite of what was intended.
7. They can foster short-term thinking
When rewards become the prime motivator, employees focus on them. The decisions they make are motivated not by what is in the best long-term interests of the organisation, but those which are more likely to help them achieve the targets necessary to get the rewards.
Reward-based motivation
One of the Six Devas making an offering to the Tian Tan Buddha (Ngong Ping Lantau Island, Hong Kong)
It should be noted at this point that rewards do often provide a motivation for employees. However, it is important to remember that motivations are not solely governed by money. If that was the only relevant factor, then the organisation which paid the highest rates would be the most productive and creative. This is not always the case.
Therefore, a leader/manager has to look at the other factors which motivate employees and work on these in addition to providing adequate financial rewards. Pink’s assertion is that an organisation may not fully realise the potential of an employee if the organisation does not look at every area of motivation.
Pink’s theory of different motivation types, which he terms Type I and Type X, explains in more detail how this can be done.
Type I and Type X
Pink suggests that people fall into two main categories – Type I and Type X. Type I employees are motivated by intrinsic factors, while Type X are more motivated by external factors. People are not exclusively one type or the other and may have common traits. However, ‘for Type Xs, the main motivator is external rewards; any deeper satisfaction is welcome, but secondary.’ They may derive fulfilment from other aspects of work, their primary motivator remains external rewards.
Conversely, with Type I employees the main motivator is ‘the freedom, challenge, and purpose of the undertaking itself; any other gains are welcome, but mostly as a bonus.’
Pink lists the following points to consider about Type I and Type X behaviour:
Type Is are made not born – people’s motivations can change due to circumstance.
Type Is almost always outperform Type Xs in the long run – over a period of time, they will have a higher motivation level than those whose motivation is purely external.
Type I behaviour does not disdain money or recognition – these are both still important factors a leader should consider.
Type X behaviour requires ever greater rewards – having achieved a reward, the same reward will not provide the same level of motivation for a Type X employee the next time they come to the task. Therefore, the rewards have to increase each time.
Type I behaviour is a renewable resource – interest can be piqued by new projects or causes etc.
Type X behaviour focuses on the reward, not the task – because Type X behaviour is geared towards achieving the reward, they focus on the end of the task and completion, rather than looking at the task as a complete entity.
Type I behaviour promotes greater physical and mental wellbeing – Pink notes studies by behavioural scientists Deci and Ryan, which found that those who were primarily motivated by intrinsic factors were more psychologically healthy than those who were reacting to external motivations.
By recognising that there are additional factors which influence motivation, Pink suggests that the model behind Motivation 2.0 should be updated. He terms this new model
Motivation 3.0.
Within the workplace, the majority of employees are motivated by a desire to earn a living. However, it fails to account for people who are not entirely money-motivated. For example, there are those who choose to work in sectors which offer smaller rewards due to moral reasons, such as charitable or public sector organisations. According to Pink, humans have natural intrinsic motivational drivers which mean that we react to our own in-built sense of purpose – we are motivated by a desire to complete assigned tasks.
Statue of Sir Edmund Hillary looking towards Aoraki (formerly Mount Cook) (New Zealand)
The author suggests that there are three main factors which influence Motivation 3.0 – autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Autonomy
Pink asserts that employees need to feel a degree of control over the work that they do to be most productive. He posits that to help ensure maximum motivation, a leader/manager should ‘provide ample choice over what to do and when to do it.’ By giving employees a less heavily-regulated working environment, they can feel a larger degree of freedom, which helps them to retain a high-level of interest and engagement with the task at hand. If employees have a large degree of autonomy in areas such as time, task choice, techniques and team selection they feel more like collaborators and less like employees. Employees often feel that they are allowed to express themselves creatively within the parameters of the work. It is up to the leader/manager to provide a set of parameters which allows both creative freedom for the employees and suits the organisation’s overall needs.
Mastery
The concept suggested by Pink here is a straightforward one; people are often more engaged by tasks which they can do well. If people find a task too difficult to master, it can have a negative effect on their desire to perform it as they fear failure. However, the converse can also be true. If an employee is so proficient in a task that they can complete it with very little challenge, they can become demotivated by the ease of a task. Ensuring that employees are in a role they find challenging but not impossible is the key factor for leaders here.
Purpose
Pink argues that people are intrinsically motivated by purpose. He cites the growth in ethical organisations and the rise in voluntary organisations as proof that people can be motivated by the purpose of the organisation as a whole.
When employees believe in what the organisation is trying to do, this can often be more motivational to them in the long-term than the ‘rush’ of short-term financial gain.
What does this mean for leaders/managers?
Pink’s work argues that employees are motivated not only by the promise of rewards and fear of penalties. It is therefore important for a leader or manager to look at what the accompanying or driving motivators are for each employee. If leaders and managers are able to recognise these motivations, it will allow them to ensure that the needs of the employee are being more fully addressed. By widening understanding of what an employee requires from an employer, it helps ensure that the employer can provide the correct environment for the employee to excel.
Criticism of Pink’s ideas
Pink’s work, whilst well-researched, could be said to introduce long-standing ideas in motivation and present them as new. Some may feel that many organisations have already been responding to employees’ non-financial motivators with incentives such as flexible working, on-site crèches and employee volunteering initiatives.
Conclusion
Pink’s work recognises the importance of traditional motivational techniques while insisting that there are wider factors behind what drives people. By looking at motivators being more complex and personal than traditional motivation models suggest, leaders and managers can help ensure employees are as productive as possible.
Reference:
Daniel H. Pink is a best-selling author and expert on motivation. He has written for the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Wired, as well as regularly lecturing at various universities around the world.
Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us (Canongate Books, 2010).
Intrinsic motivation is Pink’s description for motivating factors which occur within a person naturally, such as a desire to succeed or curiosity to discover information.
Comments