Well, is there actual urgency? Do people feel that it actually makes a difference if they keep pushing harder? Fear seems like a bad motivator in the long run.

Well, is there actual urgency? Do people feel that it actually makes a difference if they keep pushing harder? Fear seems like a bad motivator in the long run. In most companies it's simply that getting promoted is quite hard, so why push so hard just to be stuck at the same place if you can do just enough work to not get fired? Celebrating shipping a feature is nice, but if people see that after the celebration they're back in the wheel again with the next feature I can see why they're losing motivation. But again, maybe they just see that they're doing enough and don't care about burning themselves out for the sake of pleasing their manager? You should watch "Office Space", could tell you a thing or two about people management and intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, I think you just have a hard time taking your teams perspective.