Inspiring content (video below)

We’ve recently found an amazing TED Talk by Dan Pink which breaks down our own motivations and refers to science to ultimately make the case that a sole financial incentive is an outdated concept and may lead to a poorer performance…

 

We have recognized it at Flock and help companies to increase performance by empowering their own employees to co-create and engage their organisational cultures.

If you are looking to find an inspiration on a Monday afternoon feel free to watch the video below. Enjoy!

 

 

The science behind our motivation

In his video Dan shows that as long as tasks involve only mechanical skills, bonuses work as you would expect: the higher the pay the better the performance. But once the task calls for even rudimentary cognitive skills and larger reward led to poorer performance.

In fact, the highest reward often results in the poorest performance and financial incentive can result in a negative impact on the performance.

Dan calls to abort the ‘carrot and stick’ approach emphasising that it is based more on folklore than of science. The talk calls for a new approach which focuses on the individual intrinsic motivations. It proposes a new business operating system which revolves around three elements:

• Autonomy – urge to direct our own lives
• Mastery the desired to get better and better
• Purpose – yearning to do what we do in service of something larger than ourselves.

 

Summarising:  If-then rewards only work in narrow circumstances and destroy creativity. Unseen intrinsic motivations really drive the overall performance.