CHAPTER 18 Motivating Through Team Rewards, Incentives, and Recognition

There are two things people want more than sex and money: recognition and praise.

—Mary Kay Ash

Overview

Despite evidence to the contrary, organizations continue to pump funds into incentive schemes without evidence of their effectiveness. Unfortunately, as Dan Pink so eloquently put it in his TED Talk “The Puzzle of Motivation,” “Businesses don’t do what science knows,” and as Paul Marciano put it, “Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work.”

In Chapter 4 we articulated, as powerfully as we could, the critically important role of recognition in driving up engagement, efficiency, effectiveness, and team member retention.

In this chapter, we address the reality that many organizations, ...

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