Page 33 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

4 Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work

There is no debate that operant conditioning can be used to
motivate people to attain specific goals. The question is whether
reward and recognition programs based on the principles of oper-
ant conditioning are effective and should be used in organizations.
The answer is a resounding no.

or employees. You use these techniques every day; wouldn’t it be
nice to know what you’re doing?
There is nothing wrong with the principles of operant condi-
tioning. It is just that they don’t work in the context of a business
environment where you need people to use their minds. Fortu-
nately, we don’t have to worry about “fixing” traditional reward
and recognition programs because the problem isn’t with these
programs at all; the problem is the fundamental, underlying
assumption that to maximize the productivity of our employees
we need to motivate them.
We have been led to believe that the same principles that get
a mouse or pigeon to “work hard” are the ones that we should
use to make human beings more productive. Here’s the news-
flash: human beings performing work in organizations are actu-
ally different from mice running in mazes and pressing bars for
food pellets. People are complex beings filled with thoughts,
feelings, attitudes, personalities, skills, experiences, and goals
whose work is typically complex and requires higher-order cog-
nitive skills including problem solving and decision making.
Moreover, we work with other complex human beings in com-
plex organizations. Although it may feel like it at times, we are
not hamsters running on a wheel.