All rewards, by virtue of being rewards, are not attempts to influence or persuade or solve problems together, but simply to control. […] Control breeds the need for more control, which then is used to justify the use of control. […] Punishment and reward proceed from basically the same psychological model, one that conceives of motivation as nothing more than the manipulation of behavior. […] Good management, like good teaching, is a matter of solving problems and helping people do their best. This takes time and effort and thought and patience and talent. Dangling a bonus in front of employees does not. In many workplaces, incentive plans are used as a substitute for management: pay is made contingent on performance and everything else is left to take care of itself. […] If it does makes sense to measure the effectiveness of rewards on the basis of whether they produce lasting change, the research suggests that they fail miserably.
Click to Add the First »