The talk was given by Dan Pink, a former speechwriter of Al Gore (with wicked animation by others). He discusses the differences in work based on whether or not there are incentives, and also based on the difficulty of the task. I certainly recommend giving it a listen.

I am a total non-expert on this, and I didn’t read the discussed papers (I’m lazy on this particular topic), but I found the video interesting. I’m surprised that this topic hasn’t been tackled in a scientific fashion before recently, as it seems pretty straightforward.

The talk seems centred on two ideas. The first being that after someone receives a significant reward, in aggregate, afterwards, they will not perform as well later. The second establishing that some of the best work occurs when knowledge workers are doing what they want.

Without reading the papers (again, I must qualify that I know nothing about this, but I suppose nobody expects me to be smart on interestingmonkey.com), it does seem possible that these studies aren’t measuring the overall work accomplished in this system versus other systems. From what I understand, it is measuring the work accomplished after rewards are given, per individual based on the reward level. First, it seems possible that a carrot in the future may indeed help one work harder before they have gotten the carrot. Furthermore, a company’s real goal would likely be to maximize the total work of all their employees in aggregate, rather than just their top employees. There is also the possibility that a company (say) may not be able to recruit knowledge workers that are as good if there were not any incentives in place. I’m playing devil’s advocate (all these points may have been tackled in places), but are there any thoughts on the ideas in the talk, at least from an intuitive standpoint? Might it make more sense to set an appropriate salary based on the position, and then give similar raises to everyone?

I really should just read the papers. I’ll do it if someone pays me.