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The underlying study to this whole, "money doesn't motivate us," idea often gets misinterpreted. What did the study actually say? They took a group and had them perform two tasks. One was a problem solving task that required an abstract / creative solution. The other was a mechanical task that basically required the group to assemble widgets. The control group was offered no money and the test group was offered a payout. The results are well known, in the mechanical task, money was an effective motivator. People will put more effort forth for cash. In the creative task, money negatively impacted performace. i.e. Pressure chokes creativity. The common interpretation misses an important confounding factor: Stress. The cash prize for success (up to a month's salary in some of the tests performed overseas), is stressful, and it's just as likely that stress, not money, caused the poor performance in the creativity task. If you give an employee a good wage and strong job security, are they likely to feel more stressed, or less? If we accept that stress kills creativity, then everything fits together nicely. Mastery, purpose and autonomy make for a comfortable work environment. So does job security. So does a fair (market) wage. I think the insight here isn't so much that you should (or can) pay people less, but that crafting a good work environment as defined in the article isn't expensive, or even necessarily hard, and can produce large gains. |