> In a company, employees needs an incentive to work together and be constructive.
Isn't the incentive getting paid?
Isn't the incentive getting paid?
You should be paid enough just for showing up to take money off the table as a concern. If you worry about money, you will not perform at your capacity. You need to be motivated by better things, like sense of accomplishment, the joy of figuring stuff out and solving problems, teamwork, etc.
As a motivator, money is a notch above the whip, of course, but not very good in the grand scheme of things.
The book Drive is very good and discusses the latest evidence around motivation at depth. Obligatory reading for anyone in a leadership like role, in my opinion.
Money, no-one shows for work (well almost no-one) if they don't get paid. Everyone I know doesn't give a fuck about a sense of accomplishment. If the choice is 'work for X and get a sense of accomplishment or get 3X without it'. (If I remember correctly) The book's research while valid, leaves out a lot of counter research and selective selects some data over other.
Unless you are curing cancer, give me more money. Want to motivate me? put a 100k bonus at the end of the year. I don't give a fuck about teamwork or to feel accomplished. Money makes the world go around, and that is why I show up for work.
I think -- like you describe -- that many people will go through life only ever motivating their work with money. I think this can happen for any number of reasons, some of which are just personality traits, and that's fine.
In other words, I won't contest your experiences because I fully believe you share them with many other people. However, I also don't think they invalidate the general results that a lot of people could be paid enough in a good enough environment to remove money as a motivator, that would be cheaper for companies, and society would be better off for it.
The thing is, when people/self help gurus/whatnot talk about money not bringing happiness and job satisfaction and whatnot, they are using that against you (general you). What is paid enough anyway? If I have 5 kids, and you have none, it will probably be different. Or if your hobby is race cars and for me walking in the park? And the most important is, more money = safer future. If you exclude the FAANGs, most people are underpaid (in the sense of being enough to be happy and safe for the future) and the 75K and money doesn't equal happiness is used against them. It is nothing but owners/managers trying to get the most of the person for the least they can pay (why is taboo to talk about salaries? or you are asked sometimes to not speak of the bonus you got, etc?)
Just assume if a company is trying to 'convince' you for less money (even if you are asking for 500k and they want to offer you 450k 'only) by saying they are good company, teamwork, etc etc, just be sure, 99% of the time the owner/manager wants those 50k for his own bank account/benefit. If money didn't matter, the owners would be super happy to give their profits in forms of higher wages to the employees.
I want to emphasise that when I talk about motivation higher than money, it is definitely not an employee of the month award. If that is your idea of intrinsic motivation, I can absolutely understand your confusion.
The threshold for how much money is enough money to not be a concern depends on both personal opinions as well as the community around the person, just as you say.
If a company tries to convince me it's worth a pay cut to work there, that's a strong signal they are running an awful environment.
The best places I've worked are the ones where managers say, "If you ever feel economically undervalued, please just ask for a higher salary. It would be so silly to lose you over something we can so easily fix."
When I talk about "money should not be a concern" I really mean that. If they are trying to get you for less money, then clearly money is a concern around there, invalidating everything else about intrinsic motivation.
One of the most common pretenses used? Family. We're a family, we work like a family, everyone here is a family. Wouldn't you work overtime for the family? You should sacrifice for the family. You should die for the family.
That is why 'my needs taken care of' issue comes up to me. Yes, 100% of the jobs I worked paid me enough to have a decent life, but if I got fired and couldn't find a job, I would be on the street after a few months. That is why the 75K USD or whatever it was in the book saying it didn't improve happiness is bollocks. You might not starve in SF with 75K, but I assure you an extra 20k would make you much happier, even if not for the peace of mind that you could save it for a rainy day.
If we talk about UBI or millionaires, sure, money stops being a concern, but I also don't see a lot of millionaires going over job boards trying to find a job that gives them a sense of accomplishment. They are doing their own things to achieve that happiness, and I doubt is working for someone else (some exceptions of course)
In practice, the worst extreme of this dynamic seems to be the use of pale-skinned models for advertising in areas where people have dark skin. The reasoning might be as simple as pale skin showing up brighter in print, but the outcome is otherwise perfectly healthy people getting body dysphoria.
The only reason I work for others is money. Money is a path to freedom.
It doesn't help that half of the forces in our industry are concerned with accruing power at the expense of individuals. I want nothing to do with that sort of thing.
All I said is that if you instruct people to do a job and tell them "Every time your work is of excellent quality, you will get a temporary increase in payment, and every time it is of bad quality, you will get a temporary decrease in payment", on average, one of three things will happen:
1. The quality of their work stays the same. (For example because the environment is not set up such that it's in their power to do a better job, or you're measuring quality on a different dimension than is relevant to this person.)
2. The quality of their work declines. (For example because they don't agree with the exchange rate you're offering on money-for-quality.)
3. They find a way to cheat the system to make it look like the quality of their work improves even though it does not. (Because you have made money rather than quality the goal to chase after.)
You'll note that the desired outcome just isn't there. This is for many diverse reasons in different circumstances and the book I mentioned goes into each.
If instead you instruct people to do a job and create an environment in which they can feel proud over good work, in which they can fulfill themselves, and be a valued and active part of something bigger, you'll on average see one outcome:
1. The quality of their work improves. (Because that's the only way for them to trigger their internal reward circuits.)
Well, not quite. It takes one more thing: in order for the quality of their work to improve, they must feel secure, both physically, and fiscally. If you threaten them with the whip, or there's not enough money to make their ends comfortably meet, the quality of their work won't improve.
No, humans are not coin-operated robots. There is an entire field of psychology dedicated to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_and_organizational_...
Also it's very well known that most people are willing to accept salaries below market rates to work on topics/goal/environments they really care about.
Equally, many work in ethically controversial organizations because of higher salaries.
But seriously, the psychology of worker incentives has been studied. Things like employee of the month and yearly bonuses exist because salary alone did less. You compete internally to be promoted, recognised as a top mind, paid more. These things are to your direct advantage.
Obviously at a small startup you want it to not go bust. Your incentive for getting paid next month is real. Once you are at facebook, well it is going to keep paying you. You don't have tangible real impact on company outcome. So you start optimising yours
I thought they existed because it's cheaper to hand out worthless certificates and occasional one-off payments than actually increase employees' wages. Which is why "employee of the month" and other non-monetary rewards are popular minimum/low wage workplaces.
I wouldn't be shocked to find out I am wrong. Just surprised.
Yes, that is my point.
If I get paid more if your project fails because there is more budged for my project. My motivation is against collaboration.
I do it for the money. And the company, thru forcing me to compete with my colleagues for budged, and bonuses, gives me an incentive to not help, or in the worse case scenario, to sabotage their work.
And managers cannot do much about it if there is a strong economic incentive to be hostile to your colleagues.
For example, say that there is one team lead position available. It probably pays more. My incentive as an employee is do what it takes to get that position even if it damages my company.