I am posting one of my blog posts for you.
Motivation Kills……. Your Company!
Ever wondered why the big compensation packages led to small performances and almost broke the world?
Right from inception, we are fed a diet of reward and punishment. Want better performance then give bigger rewards. Want to stop slackers, punish.
Now if this worked: economists, consultants of all hues, say it does then we should be in a booming world and not one that is on life support.
Even with contrary findings, all motivational programs continue to worship at the altar of compensation. Is it that the economists or consultants are not aware of the problem that exists? Most assured they know, but choose to imitate an ostrich.
The contrarian view to the popular Reward and Punishment, was first expressed by Harry. E. Harlow, a professor of Psychology in 1949.
He and his colleagues wanted to study the behavior of eight Rhesus monkeys. They took the monkeys and give them a simple puzzle to solve. When they tested the monkeys on the 12th and 13th day, they found that monkeys could solve the puzzles very quickly and sometimes less than sixty minutes!
Harry and pals were left scratching their heads, as no one had taught the monkeys to solve the puzzles, they did it on their own.
So the scientists thought that if they rewarded the monkeys with raisins on successfully solving puzzles then they would be faster.
But surprise, surprise, the performance fell and ........ lot more in my blog