Why carrots and sticks are bad for your company’s health

By Jevita Nilson

If I told you that making salary, perks and benefits central to your employees’ work life would lead to poorer performance and demotivation, you’d probably think I was foolish. “But people are motivated by money and extrinsic rewards”, you’d say, “if I dangle a big and shiny enough carrot, they are bound to perform well in order to obtain it.”

But if you’ve read Dan Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us or heard of his groundbreaking theory about what really motivates human beings you’d probably be nodding your head in agreement.

Motivation revamped: A summary of Daniel H. Pink’s new theory of what motivates us

By Jevita Nilson

Business books aren’t always the most riveting reads. However this week I became unexpectedly enthralled in Daniel H. Pink’s Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. I read the book, cover to cover, in less than three days.

Pink’s persuasive theory on what motivates us – in work, school and in our personal lives – is backed by four decades of solid scientific research on human motivation, and highlights an extreme mismatch between the human capital practices that businesses use that the practices that really work.