Analysis Of Extrinsic Motivation

Cameron, J., Banko, K. M., & Pierce, W. D. (2001). Pervasive Negative Effects of Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation: The Myth Continues. The Behavior Analysist , 1-44.

of us prefer to be intrinsically motivated. We like to have fun on what we do instead of being

There are as many different methods of motivating employees today as there are companies operating in the global business environment. Still, some strategies are prevalent across all organizations striving to improve employee motivation. The best employee motivation efforts will focus on what the employees deem to be important. It may be that employees within the same department of the same organization will have different motivators. Many organizations today find that flexibility in job design and reward systems has resulted in employees ' increased longevity with the company, improved productivity, and better morale.

When a person plans or wants to do something, he or she has a motivation for that specific thing. In other words, when a person does something, that person has a reason why he or she should do that thing. Not always there is a reason to do something, but sometimes may be many reasons that are backing a person to take those actions to do it. This happens not only to humans, or living organisms, but also in nonliving organisms. An example is when a rock which had bounced after it hit the floor while falling down. Scientists may tell some of the reasons why the rock does that kind of action, but they cannot tell all of the reasons that back the rock’s actions. A similar thing, as the scientists, was Alfie Kohn trying to do in his essay, “Why

Extrinsic motivation it is the motivation brought about by what a person is getting from a certain task, rather than interest in the task. An example of extrinsic motivation is when a student who is not particularly interested in math works hard in order to attain a good grade, and in a working person’s life, it could be working on a task that is not necessarily interesting to him/her, but that is giving a good amount of financial reward. A good example of intrinsic motivation is working as a volunteer in a children’s home because taking care of children is of personal interest and satisfaction, to the person, despite getting no reward.

While watching “The Puzzle of Motivation” by Dan Pink, I was very intrigued. Throughout the entire talk, there were several interesting points that were made. It really interested me when Pink talked about the group that was rewarded. Pink stated that if the contestants were in the top 25% of the fastest times, they would be rewarded five dollars. With this incentive, most would hope to do well, if not better than the person that would not be rewarded. Pink then goes on to point out the results. How much faster did the group that was offered a reward actually do? On average, it took them three and a half minutes longer. This really stood out to me because when offered a reward for a task, normally a person would be more motivated and thus do better. What amazed me even more was that this isn’t just a one time thing. This is has been replicated over and over for nearly 40 years. As Pink says around 04:33, “These contingent motivators -- if you do this, then you get that -- work in some circumstances. But for a lot of tasks, they actually either don 't work or, often, they do harm.” These rewards that are being offered are being used to attempt to sharpen thinking and accelerate creativity, but instead it’s proving to do the opposite. It’s proving to dull thinking and block creativity.

Intrinsic motivation is gaining more recognition in the workplace. Books like Driven by Daniel Pink talk about the scientific data that supports the notion that humans are not wired to be rewarded with more money, but instead a sense of purpose. The connection between intrinsic motivation and working independently is that by working in a team there is less individual contribution, therefore limiting the sense of ownership in a project. When a person works independently they set their own goals and deadlines (Halvorson) while forced to comprehend the task at hand clearer. The quality of the work is higher in part because the success of the work is left entirely on one person, but also because individuals find reasons to remain motivated and

The success of any business depends on the productivity and satisfaction of its employees. Employees need to be motivated to work. Motivation can be defined as the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals. Motivation can be either intrinsic or extrinsic. For an individual to be motivated in a work situation there must be a need, which the individual would have to perceive a possibility of satisfying through some reward. Intrinsic motivation stems from motivations that are inherent and arise from performing the task of the job itself, which the individual gets a feeling of either positive or negative motivation as a result of

Comparatively, I can agree to Drevitch’s point of view that the problem with today’s society is that many people are easy distracted and influenced by even a small amount of incentives that get thrown their way. Drevitch emphasized “When it comes to getting people to do what they ought to, our first instincts are often wrong.” Nevertheless, I can admit I have personally fallen into these categories with motivation at work. I have co-workers that I really like to work with, and we try to make it a fun work environment, so it’s enjoyable and really does make someone motivated to be a productive worker. Nonetheless, I know my limits if asked to do something beyond my pay grade, and I have to make conscious decisions before I can consider if it is worth it. On the other hand, I don’t think all extrinsic motivation is a bad concept for certain situations. For instance, as parents, our purpose is to help guide and motivate our children to do things that will help them towards their future through disciplinary and sometimes reinforcement. However, it is important to understand, and acknowledge that there is a fine

Steven Kerr’s article highlighted the multitude of problems associated with organizations and their faulty reward systems or incentives that are set up to accomplish one then, yet motivate people to do another. Kerr simply states: “Managers who complain about lack of motivation in their workers might do well to consider the possibility that the reward systems they have installed are paying off for behavior other than what they are seeking.” While Kerr gives a myriad of examples to illustrate this issue, I’d like to specifically focus in depth on two of them.

Motivation may be the most misunderstood subject known to man. My guess is that most of us don't really know what motivates us. And if we don't even think consciously about what we are motivated by, thinking about what motivates others is probably going to be the furthest thing from our minds. And both of these oversights can stifle our career ascent.

Management expects all employees to achieve that goal in order to receive a monthly bonus in their paycheck. The problem with this motivational technique was that each employee was to push the sale of clothing and other retail in order to make the bonuses each month. This would cause some employees to get hostile because they were not selling the most that they had set for themselves. Another problem that arose from this motivational technique was that employees began to dislike the employees that had met their quota for the month because they had received bonuses, while the other believed that had worked just as hard but not received the extra money for their effort. This technique was based solely on the amount of inventory

In the video “The Puzzle of Motivation,” Dan Pink explains different ways on how employees can perform better in organizations. For instance, he mentions that the reward-and-punishment way should be avoided in the workplace. Dan Pink believes that the reward-and-punishment approach leaves employees less space for creativity and decrease their chances to think sharp. He announces the “The Candle Problems” studies to support his claim on this approach and explains that inclining more close to intrinsic motivators can be a solution toward how to improve employees performance. Pink mentioned that extrinsic motivators did work well for ‘20th century tasks’ and that it is time to focus in the direction of intrinsic motivators for our modern businesses.

“While Mangers complain about lack of motivation in their workers, they might as well consider the possibility that the reward systems they’ve installed are paying off for the opposite”.

The research covers a wide range of resources to study the incentive and rewards scheme in the NHS, and analyse the most appropriate motivation theories and how it can be applied within the health care service in order to motivate its staff and increase the health care staff productivity and convert it into a better care service to be provided to NHS patients.