What Science Knows That Business Ignores About Incentives

Inevitably, when we're working with senior leadership to create a culture of innovation, one of the first ideas suggestion is to create an innovation award, or an incentive plan to reward successful ideas. 

This causes me to cringe.

I balk not just because of the inevitable unintended consequences, but mostly because incentives for extrinsic motivation for creative thinking and innovation (as well as most knowledge work) aren't effective.  Studies from Harvard researcher Theresa Amabile proved it, Alfie Kohn wrote a great book explaining it entitled, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's Praise, and other Bribes, and now Daniel Pink (who was a great sport when I punned off his surname during my introduction of him at the Innovation Immersion* a few years ago) wrapped it up in a 20 minute talk at the TED conference that is enlightening, humorous, and provacative. You can see the talk by Daniel Pink on the Surprising Science of Carrots and Sticks here:

So I'm curious: what's your experience with receiving rewards or punishments around your innovation efforts?

(*By the way, if you're interested in a GREAT conference on innovation, I highly recommend the Innovation Immersion.  Use registration code "SPKR2118" for a 30% discount on registration -- a little gift for you.  Or is it an incentive? Hmmmm.)

Comments

[JennieM]

Jonathan: Thank you for sharing this post. It helped me view an important decision I need to make in a way that was not so black and white. I hope to face the results from a broader position than before viewing this video.