Being in the zone at work can be highly fulfilling. Aside from getting an incredible amount of stuff done, there’s that feeling of heightened awareness, knowing nothing can distract you from exerting yourself in meaningful creation. But then there are days when the hours dribble by, and you look for distractions from a task that you’re having to force yourself to do, only to find that it exacerbates the frustration. In fact, Britons spend 218 minutes a day procrastinating, costing UK businesses £76 billion a year. 

Wasted human capital is a pervasive issue in the workplace, with countless hours of productive time either misdirected or mis-motivated. “Human capital, not financial capital, is today’s scarcest resource,” argues Eric Garton, leader of the Global Organization practice at Bain & Company. 

 There’s an employee engagement crisis, with serious repercussions for the businesses that keep our societies and economies running. According to Gallup, just 13% of people working for an organisation say they’re ‘engaged’ – involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their job and workplace – and research from the World Economic Forum suggests that fulfilling people’s potential could boost global GDP by 20%. 

New research into the science of motivation shows how using a ‘carrot and stick’ method is contributing to workplace disengagement. Self-determination theory is a new understanding of the factors that help people flourish – namely autonomy, relatedness and competence (the ARC of Happiness) – and this can easily be applied to improve productivity in the workplace. Canvas8 spoke with Susan Fowler, expert on the science of motivation and author of 

Why motivating people doesn’t work… and what does

, to understand how to move away from simple incentives and towards an optimally motivated workplace in which an engaged team can do their best work.

“One of the problems has always been that we have a short-term focus, using the carrot and stick because we need results now,” says Fowler. “What leaders have failed to understand is that that doesn’t work in the long run. They can’t keep up the carrots. They can’t afford the carrots.” 

 Worse yet, this method doesn’t work that well in the short-term either, fuelling disengagement at work.

A 2013 Gallup survey of over 150,000 workers in the US found that only 30% of employees are engaged and inspired at work, while 52% are present but not particularly excited about their job. A further 18% are actively disengaged, with Gallup CEO Jim Clifton describing them as "[roaming] the halls spreading discontent." What’s more, these individuals cost the US up to $550 billion in lost productivity each year – and a simple financial incentive won’t always make them more likely to focus. 

Rewards distract us from what we’re really supposed to be doing, and ultimately they fail. They really undermine our potential for optimal motivation

“The carrot and stick is basically a way to bribe people, and everyone now understands why that might not be the best way to approach motivation,” explains Fowler. “Take Salesforce, for example. It’s often required that salespeople enter in data and information after every sales call and proposal, and all that kind of stuff... Salespeople notoriously hate paperwork and Salesforce is basically an electronic version of you doing reporting. And because salespeople are not intrinsically inclined to love doing something like Salesforce, sales leaders, for example, think ‘well, we have to bribe them and we have to use extrinsic motivation because there’s no way we can force them to be intrinsically motivated.’” 

 These managers may right in this regard, but by boiling motivation down to rewards alone, they limit the possibilities of how they might galvanise their workforce.

“Extrinsic motivation shifts focus from the task at hand to whatever the reward or the outside incentive is,” says Fowler. “So as soon as that’s taken away, people are no longer ‘motivated’ to do what they were doing.” 

 It’s been well documented that putting the emphasis too heavily on external rewards can crowd out any intrinsic motivation, with Fowler adding: “Rewards distract us from what we’re really supposed to be doing, and ultimately they fail. They really undermine our potential for optimal motivation.” 

Carrot and stick tactics don’t make for happier employees

An often unseen consequence of motivating people with financial rewards, discounts, contests and rankings is that all of these things can actually become the stick rather than the carrot. “People start to feel guilty if they’re not taking advantage of it, they feel guilty if they’re not in the top, they feel pressure to get the reward,” says Fowler. “What this does is increase the requirement of emotional labour as you have to constantly self-regulate. As a result, you don’t have the energy to devote to creativity, to innovation, to building your competence, because you’re so busy managing those emotions. Guilt and shame are obviously two, but it’s a myth that we actually work better under pressure. There are some people who understand how to take external pressure and turn it into optimal motivation, like professional athletes, but most people don’t know how to do that.” 

Not only does increased pressure degrade team dynamics, but too much decreases performance by inhibiting the quality of decision-making and creativity. 

 In the US, 36% of employees suffer from work-related stress, and it’s reported that this is a direct cause of absenteeism and lost workdays, costing businesses over $30 billion a year. 

Carrots can be seen turning into sticks when we consider a salesperson whose bonus assessment is closing in and they’re a few sales short. “They become overwhelmed,” says Fowler. “A lot will go into what’s called the ‘disinterested motivational outlook’ because they don’t know how to cope with the pressure. This pressure then causes them to start selling for the wrong reasons. And so they shift from being service-oriented and concerned about solving problems to being concerned about meeting the numbers.” 

A tantalising sales bonus can turn into a source of pain

“The fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills,” reads the opening of Richard Ryan and Edward Deci’s paper ‘Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being’. Within it, the pair make the case that most people are naturally productive and self motivated, and that showing effort and commitment is in fact more normal than exceptional. 

 The two psychologists also outline how social and cultural factors can either facilitate or undermine people’s initiative, wellbeing and performance. 

This motivation opportunity is not to be missed. Research from Gallup found that highly engaged teams are, on average, 18% more productive and generate 12% more profit than the least engaged teams. 

 For organisations and leaders, there are three main contexts in which this thinking can be applied. “There’s the organisational context – the systems, policies, and procedures – there’s the leadership context, and then there’s the individual context,” says Fowler. “In each of those contexts, the three main factors of autonomy, relatedness and competence should be front of mind when we’re designing a human environment or system.” 

Giving people a sense of autonomy means providing them the freedom to make choices in their role – framing things in a way that allows employees to feel greater control over what they’re doing. After all, the average person spends around 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime, so it’s vital to develop a sense of relatedness, which may be done by creating a culture, product, or service that helps them feel like they’re contributing to a greater whole. 

 Gens Y and Z are especially concerned with the societal and personal benefits of a particular career than the pay cheque. 

 In fact, 58% of US Gen Yers value the quality of their work life more than financial benefits. 

When you’re setting goal, don’t assume that just because you told someone that they have a goal, that they’re actually motivated by that goal. You might have to help them reframe the goal in a way that makes it optimally motivating to them

Cultivating a sense of competence means making sure that workers have all they need to meet all of their everyday challenges effectively. “If we’re going through a change, how do we help people cope with the ambiguity that change creates?” asks Fowler. “We need to recognise that uncertainty exists and help people develop the skills necessary to cope with what’s happening in their environment.” 

The same task can be motivated in a variety of ways, all resulting in different levels of performance, creativity and engagement. “When you’re setting goals, don’t assume that just because you told someone that they have a goal, that they’re actually motivated by that goal,” explains Fowler. “You might have to help them reframe the goal in a way that makes it optimally motivating to them. And then at an individual level, it’s learning the skill of motivation. It’s learning how I can use my own self-regulation to shift my motivation from sub-optimal to optimal, and just to be able to identify your own motivational outlet.” 

The ARC of Happiness is a useful lens through which to analyse an organisational situation. Economists at the University of Warwick found that happiness among employees can lead to a 12% spike in productivity, while unhappy workers are around 10% less productive. “We find that human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity,” says Warwick’s research team. “Positive emotions appear to invigorate human beings.” 

 While that seems pretty obvious, it still takes a brave team to have the confidence that they can get results by not focusing on goals, but on their people instead.

is a top leadership researcher, consultant, coach, and author of 

‘Why motivating people doesn’t work… and what does’

. Her work on optimal motivation has been proven in organisations all over the world, with clients including Microsoft, CVS, NASA, the Catholic Leadership Institute, H&R Block, Mattel, and many more.

 is Senior Behavioural Strategist at Canvas8, where he designs research strategies and leads behaviour change projects. With another foot in the academic world, he investigates the nuances of decision-making, understanding the hidden forces that guide our behaviour to rethink the ways we structure our lives and design our societies.

Careers

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'The worldwide employee engagement crisis', Gallup

'Pricing talent: fulfilling people’s potential could boost global GDP by 20%', World Economic Forum

Interview with Susan Fowler conducted by author

‘Americans hate their jobs, even with perks’, USA Today

'Motivation crowding theory', Journal of Economic Surveys

‘Consequences of workplace stress’, Boundless

‘The high price of workplace stress’, Harvard Gazette

‘Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being’, American Psychologist

‘Theory’, Selfdeterminationtheory.org

‘Micromanage at your peril’, Harvard Business Review

'Finding happiness at work', Psychology Today

‘Where people want to work is changing’, Canvas8

‘Innerspace: power-napping on the job’, Canvas8

‘Why happy employees are 12% more productive’, Fast Company

The average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime, so it’s fair to want one’s efforts over that time to feel worthwhile. Canvas8 spoke with leadership researcher and coach Susan Fowler about what a new understanding of the human psyche means for workplace motivation.

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