Money not main motivator for top performers

Last week was a mixed bag of applause and cat calls. First, President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered parastatal executives to take a 20 per cent pay cut to reduce the country’s wage bill on Monday. He said the directive was a must and any executive not ready to take the cut will be sacked.

The reaction to that was as varied —with proponents and opponents supporting and opposing in equal measure.

Barely two days later, learning was paralysed in public universities across the country after lecturers went ahead with their strike despite a court order obtained by the Federation of Kenya Employers the previous day.

But today I will spoil the party. And for the record, industrial psychologists all agree with me. It’s not about the money.

For most of us, money is a fundamental reason to work because it is measurable and tangible. Hence, it becomes a motivator by default though it may not be the primary one for many employees.

But, would we continue to do what we were doing if we were not compensated for our efforts? It is at this point that questions like “does money really affect motivation?” crop in.

Thanks to the complexity of human behaviour, the definitive answer to this question is actually NO.

Daniel Pink in his book, Drive – The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, convincingly argues that money does not motivate people who work for us.

Most rewards come in the form of an “if you do this, then you’ll get this” situation. This, however, represents a form of control and the result will either be compliance or defiance. Having to choose between the two tends to squash creativity and motivation.

Giving someone a reward to do something they’re already passionate about can sometimes cause them to begin seeing that activity as work or drudgery.

Once the reward is removed, they may no longer feel passionate about doing the activity on their own. That is why the non-commissioned work of artists tends to be more creative than their commissioned work because it has fewer constraints.

Likewise, giving employees some time to work on non-commissioned projects without constraints will also motivate them to be more creative.

Daniel Kahneman, another psychologist, proved that, money will motivate employees as long as their personal goals are being satisfied and the perception that their pay is dependent upon their performance.

In their research published in the Journal of Vocational Behaviour, the results by Kahneman and team indicated that the association between salary and job satisfaction is weak.

The findings are in sync with Gallup’s engagement research of October 2011 which reports that there is no significant difference in employee engagement by pay level.

Workers are most motivated when they feel a sense of autonomy (when they’re self directed), mastery (when they’re able to progress in their skills) and purpose (when they understand why their work is important).

In 1945, psychologist Karl Dunker created an experiment called the candle problem. The candle problem presents participants with a candle, matches, and a box containing thumbtacks.

The participants need to figure out how to attach the candle to the wall so that the candle’s wax doesn’t drip down to the table when lit.  

After about five to 10 minutes, most people figure out the solution, which is to empty the box of its thumb tacks, affix it to the wall with two thumbtacks, and put the candle on the box.

People who can see the box’s possible use, beyond just being a receptacle for the thumb tacks, are able to solve the problem.

Don’t you thinks its time we bought the Federation of Kenya employers a box of matches?