How to motivate people

Businesses often use incentives to motivate people. If they want people to perform better, they reward them.

But science shows that contingent motivators work only in some circumstances. For many tasks, they not only don't work but cause harm: It narrows focus and restricts...

Intrinsic motivation is the desire to do things because they matter, are interesting, or part of something important.

The new operating system consists of three elements:

• Autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives.
• Mastery

Suppose you get a candle, some thumbtacks and some matches. Your job is to attach the candle to the wall so the wax doesn't drip onto the table. How would you do it?

• Some people try to thumbtack the candle to the wall, which doesn't work.
• Some will try to light a match, melt th...

Glucksberg did another similar experiment using the candle experiment, but this time the thumbtacks were left out of the box.  The result is that the incentivised group beat the timing for norms groups. 

If-then rewards work well for tasks where there is a simple set of rules and a ...

In a ROWE, people don't have schedules. They show up when they want and don't have to be in the office. They just have to get their work done. 

This results in increased productivity, worker engagement and worker satisfaction, while turnover goes down. 

Building on the candle problem, scientist Sam Glucksberg divided participants into two groups:

• He asked one group to establish norms and averages for how long it typically takes someone to solve the candle problem.
• In the second group, he offered rewards for finding the solutio...