Strategic Innovation: Embedding Innovation as a Core Competency in Your Organization

MONEY DOESN'T ALWAYS TALK: THE POWER OF INTRINSIC REWARDS

Before we lay out the details on how we aligned our rewards and recognition programs with embedment, it is useful to share some background on what we quickly learned concerning people's motivation to become involved with innovation. In the early stages of our efforts, we adopted a simple program using cash as incentives for innovation. Our use of monetary rewards occurred only during this early part of our efforts and diminished over time. For example, in our North America region, we offered $500 to individuals who joined an innovation team. To our surprise, this lure of cash did not work as well as we expected; few people raced toward winning this bonus. From our experience, it seemed ...