Carrot or the stick?
What works for you ?
What works for your children?
Call it what you will, incentives are what get people to work harder.
– Nikita Khrushchev
Management bosses drive their teams with alternate use of both.
Insurance agents get lifelong percentage, from the premium paid by their customers.This encourages their tremendous enthusiasm to make you buy those policies.
Shopping at Shoppers Stop Pantaloons Big Bazaar helps us get points on our store cards . Encouraging us to shop more at those stores.
Not using a helmet can lead to serious head injury while accidents and fine if caught. Unfortunately the first one rarely stopped people in this small town.But surprisingly after increase of the fine for helmet less travel ,more people wear this ,to protect their not so important head.
This led me to think deeply about what motivates me.
When I was a little girl .My mom used to tell us stories of all the places we would visit once money was not an issue. How to make that possible?
For middle class families the best way to plan that is to study hard and get a great job.
I followed the plan to a T .But I wanted to be a doctor. For as long as I could remember,I wanted to be a doctor.
Probably a childhood wish of making my father better ,who suffered from swinging moods of MDP.
Whatever the reason I did become a doctor and I would recommend it to anyone ,who wants a chance to make the world a better place .
Life is comfortable and you feel good when you help people.
That’s when I realized the truth about why people do what they do.
At the end of the day ,we all want to make a difference. We all want to feel important. We all want to create value. If that comes with a good life ,that’s the cherry on the cake.So for people to do what you want ,they must feel a need .
A need for something.Once they start doing it ,it becomes a habit.
To get them started, incentives can go a long way.
The Governments Kanyashree and Ladli all promise money, when the girl child is educated.Shouldn’t a better life following education be prize enough ?
Unfortunately no.That’s why the cash helps.Incentives help in many places where goodness of the heart or sensibility of mind doesn’t seem to find a place.
Incentives also increase enthusiasm .It helps create a happy dedicated workforce. If great work gets you rewards ,doesn’t that create impetus for awesome results?
In fact rewards have been used in this study to help stop smoking.
In this study incentive helped physicians give better quality care for diabetes patients.Sounds weird right. But healthcare is the perfect place for a reward based programme.
Health insurance premiums are distinctly lower ,for healthy people with normal weight and no history of smoking .
In this study with 704 participants found, that with difficult tasks , performance based incentives work better.Tasks are completed more with performance based incentive than any other.
So what the truth about incentives?
They work .
Most of the time.
But at other times the stick may work.
What works for you?Comment below to let me know.
