Free Essay About Leadership Behaviors And Motivation

In The Puzzle of Motivation video Dan Pink argues that ‘stick and reward’ system does not work as effectively in the 21st century as it did earlier and that nowadays it is appropriate to use different motivation methods (such as autonomy, mastery and purpose) in order to encourage people to work more creatively and efficiently. I agree with some points the presenter makes and disagree with the others. The point I disagree with is that rewards and namely monetary rewards do not work anymore in the 21st century except for the cases where it is necessary to perform some routine mechanical work. In my opinion a lot depends on how, when and where the reward is used; it did not work in the candle experiment, i.e. when the time was in the focus but nonetheless if the task is to come up with a new idea, to find a solution to a difficult situation or to create a new product – that is when the quality and innovativeness of the result is more important than the time spent to achieve it – the reward system will be effective in this case. I agree with the point that autonomy, mastery and purpose are very important and effective motivation methods but they have to be applied very carefully. It must be kept in mind that not all workers are reliable and highly disciplined, many of them consider their work as the place where they earn money for living; thus if they are given autonomy there is no guarantee that they will perform their duties timely and qualitatively.
Critical questions for the class: 1) If you were an employer or an HR manager, would you consider providing more autonomy to the workers as a suitable method of motivation? Why or why not? 2) Do you think that the effectiveness of the reward system depends on the worker’s income level? If it does – when will it be more effective – for the workers with lower income or with higher income?