Is there is a better way to motivate than using the carrot-and-stick approach?

Carrot-and-stick is a popular approach to motivate people (and even animals) to do things. The carrot serves as a reward for accomplishing a task and the stick is a punishment for failing to accomplish it. Oftentimes we are either excited by the reward or fear the consequences, and then perform a task or a project. Sometimes the carrot or stick is clearly specified but oftentimes they are not, and we end up assuming. We tend to do the task imagining the carrot or fearing the stick. Sometimes we are subtly hinted, about which I recall an incident. In my first year as a faculty member, a senior colleague asked me to write a chapter for a handbook saying that the editor is a program manager at the National Science Foundation. If you are wondering whether that was a carrot or a stick, it definitely was a stick (writing the chapter meant nothing, but not writing could be disastrous)! I wrote the chapter grudgingly.

In fact, it is common practice to either offer a carrot or a stick (as opposed to carrot-and-stick), like in the above example where a stick was offered. Most often, positive reinforcements or providing carrots are more effective in incentivizing people to do things than threatening with punishments. While it is possible to induce a desired behavior in people using a carrot-or-stick approach and it works for simple tasks, it is not ideal for complex tasks. In particular if the task is difficult, time-consuming, the outcome is uncertain, or a combination thereof, the carrot does not work well to motivate someone to do something. But that does not mean that the stick is an option either. If you are in a position where you need to motivate your coworker, collaborator or student to do something, or your employee to take on a project, or your child to create something, how do you go about it?

To provide my thoughts on that, I would first like to acknowledge Adam Grant’ post of a wonderful note on LinkedIn and suggest you take a look at it before reading further. The main points I am going to make are what Adam has said. However, I will be taking a reverse approach, in some sense. In the middle of Adam’s Venn diagram (i.e. the intersection of the three sets) Adam indicates the kind of projects you should start right away. Take a moment to also notice what happens when only one or two of those criteria are satisfied. This is crucial because it would be quite problematic if only one or two are satisfied. Now we flip that around and say, if we need to motivate someone to take something up, why not apply that approach (instead of the carrot-and-stick approach)?

Thus, as an alternative to the carrot-and/or-stick approach, we could consider all three of the following (notice that it is all, and not one or two):

Ensure Interest

While this is the hardest of the three, I am putting it first because the other two items should not be what “creates” interest. That would be extremely counter-productive. Instead what you need to do is first understand very well what the person you are motivating is interested in. As a matter of fact, if they are not interested, you should not be motivating them in the first place. In a majority of situations you should not even be asking if they have interest, you should already know. If you are in a supervisory role, be sure it does not come across as a stick when you ask if they would be interested in a project. For that reason, you need to make the person feel very comfortable to say ‘no’ if they are not interested. But it is in your best interest of time to know in advance people’s interests in general. Then this step would be easy. Also keep in mind that some people may be interested in developing new skills while others interested in doing what they are good at.

Explain Importance

In many situations while assigning a project in a supervisory role, we do not tend to explain the importance of a project or task. It could be due to many reasons, such as, avoiding stating the obvious, or being afraid that explaining the importance might sound like a carrot-or-stick. For the former, I would recommend not assuming so, but what about the latter? Thinking it would motivate the doer, we tend to couch the importance from the doer’s standpoint. That is why it ends up looking like a carrot or stick. As a result, the doer could get quite stressed or unmotivated, neither of which is desirable. Instead, you could focus on the importance to others such as the organization, other employees, or customers. Therefore, the importance we are after is the potential impact to others. In some cases the impact may be so far out into the future, so it is critical to find something where there is short term impact.

Highlight Contribution

As the one motivating, you need to think about how the doer can contribute by undertaking the project. Is there scope for doing something new or innovative, is a question we must ask. People like to be creative, come up with fun ideas, and get a sense of accomplishment. If you can help the doer see how they could make a contribution, they would be extremely motivated to undertake the project. However, if you yourself do not see the scope for contribution, it would be very difficult to motivate someone to do a task. But there is a catch in that many times it may not be clear if the project would result in a novel contribution. For that reason it would be important to brainstorm with the doer, giving the doer plenty of opportunities to figure out if there would be a contribution.

I wish to reiterate that it is critical to do all three of the above. My senior colleague that I mentioned earlier in this article could have easily motivated me by displaying why I could be interested, stating the importance/impact, and how I could contribute. One of the benefits of this approach for motivation as opposed to carrot-or-stick is that it focuses on the process (i.e. journey) as opposed to the outcome (i.e. destination). When you are in for the ride and are not looking at the fruit of your action (or vegetable, in case of carrot), you are better prepared if for some reason the project itself does not pan out as expected. The doer oftentimes will still feel that they did something creative, fun and enjoyable, irrespective of the outcome. That goes a long way in fostering a nurturing, uplifting and productive work environment.