Yesterday I watched an interesting TED Talk by Dan Pink on motivation – http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html?source=email#.UWoPv62yIid.email
It really struck a chord with me because in my current position and throughout the company that I work at, they are using the typical business idea of motivation. Offering a big payout for meeting goals. It was interesting in this talk on how productivity actually decreases when a large reward/bonus is offered for analytical performance goals. Based on my experience, I agree with this because everyone where I work seems so consumed with meeting targets and micro-managing the steps involved to meet targets that the entire process takes longer than it actually should.
In Dan Pink’s talk he talked about companies that allowed their employees autonomy to work on their own ideas and work how they wanted to work as long as they completed the work they needed to do. I believe this works, because this is how myself and my co-worker work. When we are allowed to work at the pace we want and on what we want we achieve results much faster.
I would recommend that this talk be shown at corporate board meetings.
Adairmoon 