But carrots and sticks are strikingly ineffective at producing lasting change in attitudes or even in behaviours. In the workplace, not one controlled study has ever demonstrated a long-term improvement in the quality of performance as a result of rewards. Short-term boosts in the quantity of production, maybe. Motivation is a driver that comes from within an individual, a function of individual will. In essence, we do things because the outcome is appealing to us.
Motivation is goal-directed behaviour.
Perhaps if we can crack that question then maybe we can crack the problem. People s goals are determined by their unique sets of circumstance, their values and belief systems, family background, education, work experience and individual personality styles. Understanding human goals To understand human goals we have to return to the work of the humanistic psychologists including, or perhaps especially, the much maligned Maslow. Maslow s research was very different from previous psychologists. He focused not on what was abnormal but on what constituted positive mental health.