No Magic Bullet

Chapter 2

Getting Past the Five Myths of Employee Motivation and Performance

There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.

—H.L. Mencken

Executives and managers, in their determination to get better performance from their employees, do a lot of dumb things. At times, it seems as if efforts at organizational improvement occur more by accident than through a clear understanding and intelligent implementation of how to consistently get results. Why do organizations do such a hit-or-miss job at getting things ...