78 Leading with NLP
Research over the past 25 years has found no evidence
that people work more productively or more creatively when
they are expecting a reward than when they are rewarded
equally, or on the basis of need.^1 Usually it is the other way
around: the best people get the most money; that is paid for
talent and results, not for motivation. There is no simple re-
lationship between reward and effort.
People are not mechanical and predictable, they change
and adapt any system of rewards to their own ends. Also,
what starts as an extra bonus soon gets taken for granted and
becomes normal, just as we get accustomed to background
music. We enjoy it, then we expect it. But we notice when it
stops! So rewards can demotivate in the long term unless you
keep cranking them up.
Have you heard the story of the eccentric inventor who
lived in a tumbledown house on the edge of a village? A
group of half a dozen of the local children used to gather
around his gate at weekends shouting rude names and
laughing. They threw cans into his garden and damaged his
wooden fence. One morning the man came out to greet
them. ‘You don’t shout loud enough,’ he said, ‘and you keep
yelling the same names. I’m getting bored. I’ll give you a
pound each tomorrow if you come and shout the loudest
and rudest insults you can think of.’
Of course, the kids thought this was great. They came the
next day and shouted some choice insults they had learned
especially for the occasion from their older brothers the pre-
vious night.
‘Not bad,’ said the man, ‘but that’s still rather tame. I’m
disappointed in you. Come the day after tomorrow and if
you can do better, I’ll give you 50 pence each.’
The children came, shouted long and loud, and the man
gave them their reward. “That was good!’ he said. ‘Come
again on Saturday but I can only afford 10 pence.’
‘Only 10 pence!’ sneered the children. ‘No way!’
So they stayed away.
And never came back – it wasn’t worth it.