How anyone could get motivated by a carrot is beyond me, but that’s how the cliché goes. You can either motivate people with a whip or with a carrot. Basically, people will be running away from the whip, towards the carrot. Or the other way around, if you’re motivating a team of meat eating masochists.
People have different opinions about whether the whip or the carrot works best. I would say the carrot is currently the most popular choice, especially in a business that depends on people to think. The whip, I guess, may still to this day be useful in some types of businesses (still figuratively speaking, though!).
Obviously, I do not believe the whip works as motivation in my line of business. But I don’t think the carrot is that neat either. Yes, if you consider salary a type of ‘carrot’, that obviously works as part of the motivation, but I don’t believe a bonus at the end of the project is a good long term motivation.
I believe people are best motivated if they actually want to do the work. Of course, the salary is the foundation of that motivation, but on top of that, a meaningful job, dignifying tasks, results that give a feeling of satisfaction and a sense of personal development, constitutes the best long term motivation.
(illustration: whipped carrots)
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