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It may not be as bad a mistake as you think. There's some experimental (if unintuitive) evidence that rewarding individual contributions in organizations is har
by ambition 19y ago
It may not be as bad a mistake as you think. There's some experimental (if unintuitive) evidence that rewarding individual contributions in organizations is harmful, even to that individual's motivation. The extrinsic motivation extinguishes the individual's intrinsic motivation.
Many high achievers have an attitude of "achievement for the sake of achievement." Individual rewards crush that spirit.
Joel Spolsky wrote about it on more than one occasion. Here's one link: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/09.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/09.html
- Alex3917 19y agoSee also: A) Punished by Rewards (Alfie Kohn) B) Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory (Two Factor Theory). The idea is that a very low salary can lead to dissatisfaction, but increasing the salary beyond the required minimum isn't one of the things that increases happiness. Link: http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/herzberg/ http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/herzberg/
- akkartik 19y agoThere's a huge difference between the sense of ownership that comes automatically from small organizations and the 'incentives' that a paternalistic committee chooses to bestow on a few in its largesse, while bleeding motivation in all the other ways large organizations do that PG talks about. I don't interpret any of those studies (including Herzberg's in the sibling post) to mean 'socialism isn't so bad'. Yes it is so bad. But that doesn't mean you can't implement capitalism poorly. Capitalism isn't about profits, it's about motivation.