11
Sep
2009
Is “Pay for Performance” an oxymoron?
A colleague sent the following link to me last week: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
If you listen to the video you’ll hear Daniel Pink talking about why monetary rewards don’t necessarily increase performance; in some cases they actually hurt performance.
He says businesses need to start listening to social science.
I agree.
Now, for the hard questions. How do you get Wallstreet to start listening to social science? Businesses won’t listen until Wallstreet listens. And, how do you get compensation consultants to start listening to social science? Executive compensation programs are big business for consultanting firms. How do you convince employees that a raise matters less than all the non-monetary rewards? We might have social science experiments to prove that this is true but how do you get people to believe it when it comes to their paycheck? Yes, you can hire good, talented people and they will work hard and perform well when given non-monetary rewards; but what about the guy who has kids to raise, a mortgage to pay, and a job that is just a means to an end?
Daniel Pink, I am a big fan of your work.
These are some of the significant details that need to be worked out before business starts to listen to social science.
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