HR Pulse - Spring 2008 - (Page 40) >> ACCOMPLISHING EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE Flaw 9: Many studies, including those of Amabile, have shown that tying pay to performance seriously harms creativity. Rewards encourage people to focus narrowly on a task, to do it as quickly as possible and to take few risks. “If they feel that ‘this is something I have to get through to get the prize,’ they’re going to be less creative,” stated Amabile. “In some jobs, this won’t matter. However, that is likely to be relatively few. It seems most employers need all the creativity they can get.” Flaw 10: Kohn has argued that tying pay to performance simply does not work. He cites many studies that show no impact of such contingencies in improving performance of the individual or the company. “The detrimental effect of rewards on performance has been demonstrated with children and adults, across cultures, with every kind of reward imaginable (including but not limited to money), and with a range of tasks—although the damaging effect is more pronounced as the tasks become more complicated and quality becomes more important.” Kohn adds, “To the best of my knowledge, though, no controlled scientific study has ever found a long-term enhancement of the quality of work as a result of any reward system. For five years, I have challenged defenders of incentive systems to provide an example to the contrary, and I have yet to hear of such a study.” Moreover, he points to Japan and Germany, two countries that rarely use merit pay or other financial incentives, as examples of how performance can and does occur without financial incentives. 40 HR Pulse Spring 2008 Flaw 11: The feedback about performance is typically annual. It is well known in the realm of the psychology of human motivation that infrequent feedback is minimally effective. In fact, it may not be effective at all. The business literature is replete with examples of people touting how great their merit pay systems are working. However, these are mostly testimonials. As such, the examples being published are anecdotal and should be treated accordingly. They have limited credibility. Those that are conducted with statistical and scientific rigor show a positive effect of incentives only when short-term results are considered. Also, “the effects are most likely to be positive only when the subjects were given simple, virtually mindless tasks to do,” reported Kohn. What to Do Instead There is a much better way to obtain consistently high levels of performance. It is much more difficult to establish initially but, in the long run, is easier to ✓ ✓ ✓ 298018_JAMACareerNet.indd 1 10/13/06 7:50:16 AM http://www.jamacareernet.com
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