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I’ve been reading Daniel Pink’s book Drive over the past few days, and have been enjoying his fresh perspective on how we can motivate ourselves and others.
The premise of the book is that the old way of carrot and stick motivation is no longer the optimal way to motivate, but to focus on intrinsic motivation.
In the book Pink sites a number of studies where participants are giving monetary incentives for a task and as a result performance and quality actually drop.
It got me thinking about the difference between Reward and Recognition.
Reward
When we try to motivate a person with some sort of reward whether it be money or a trip, we begin to place a set value on what they are doing. For example, if you would tell your employee sell x widgets and he will get a $100 bonus. You are thinking that this should be a great motivator. More output more money. Your employee begins to think a number of things like; if it takes x hours to sell these widgets then really my time value is worth more and the boss is underpaying me for my other work, or the boss thinks my effort in this is only worth $100 or if I want to make more money I will have to sell 500 more of these widgets a months just to make an extra $500.
By using this type of reward system you can actually be de-motivatin your employee.
As I write this I think about the training of wales. In the beginning the rope is at the bottom of the pool. Each time the wale swims over it he gets paid a fish. The rope is raised until its above the wale. He doesn’t get paid till he goes over the rope, but the pay is the same. Eventually he is jumping ten feet in the air over the rope but the pay is still the same one fish. If you would increase the amount of fish as you raised the rope this would create expectation in the wale, and if you would cut back his fish he would cut back his performance or eat you.
People are so much more complex so you can see how this reward system could be troublesome.
Recognition
Recognition is about acknowledging the capabilities, talents, gifts in another person. It is saying that you have taken the time to notice that person and the value they offer. When you give them something, whether it is a card a book or a trip to Hawaii, it is a token a symbol of you recognizing what they offer.
The beauty of recognition is that it does not devalue the person, it doesn’t put a price on their actions. When you recognize a persons efforts it lifts them up and motivates them to push for further excellence, it motivates them to show you that they can be even more impressive.
Does this mean that you should eliminate rewards? No, I think that it is about creating a balance. You might have a bonus structure in your company as markers and goals for your employees to strive towards, but that is there for them to decide what they want to earn, but for the purposes of deep motivation you want to focus on recognition, valuing the person, their uniqueness and their gifts. Make them feel priceless and they well give you performance that is simply astounding.
Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. ~Life’s Little Instruction Book, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
It is amazing how I can work with a client to create a powerful vision, strategy and action plan of what their business can become, and then when we get together the following week nothing has happened. When I ask the client what happened the answer is often I just couldn’t find the time.
When we have become so accustomed to having our lives run on autopilot. We believe that the way our life is running is the way it must be and there is absolutely no changing it.
Have you every gone on vacation. Isn’t it amazing how you can free up all that time, and do things that are completely different from your day-to-day. And when you return from vacation your life has not fallen apart, your job is still there, your friends are still your friends. The only difference was that for a short time you set a different priority and you planned accordingly.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. – Neil Peart.
It is all about what you set as a priority in your life. Once you decide that your best is truly the only thing you will work towards you’ll begin to see the time to make it happen almost magically appear.
Your amazing life is waiting to be realized by you. Create a powerful Vision, SMACK time and life wasters out of your life, put the worthy first, and value every moment.
Have an awesome day.
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A year from now you may wish you had started today. ~Karen Lamb
You think big, dream big, plan big and take action in a big way. Unfortunately this often happens only in your mind. On the out side you continue on with the day to day, looking busy but procrastinating on that which is really important to you.
Think about something that really matters to you, something that you know if you took action on would have an amazingly wonderful impact on your life. Something that would take your business, relationship, or health to a new level of greatness and satisfaction.
What action have you taken on it? Possibly little if any.
If its so important why have you let all this time pass, how could you even let a week go by without taking any action.
To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing. ~Eva Young
Initially it is important to think of everything that needs to be done in order to achieve our objectives, but once you have thought it through and created a plan, don’t think about it anymore Just Do It! Action overcomes fear.
If you believe you can do it, know that you can. Decide on the first steps required and make them happen as soon as you can. If you can do it today. Do it!
Life moves so fast, before you know it a year will have gone by. Make the important things in your life happen. Let this week be the week you truly begin to make your dreams a reality.
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