According to behavioral economist Dan Ariely, our current view of why people work is far too simplistic. When the the industrial revolution gave way to the knowledge economy we're now in, efficiency gave way to meaning. Now more than ever, it's not just compensation that motivates us to work, it's how connected we feel to our work. It's creation, challenge, ownership, identity, pride and so on.
The bad news is, ignoring the performance of people is almost as bad as shredding their effort in front of their eyes…the good news is that by simply looking at something that someone has done—scanning it and saying 'uh huh'—that seems to be quite sufficient to dramatically improve people's motivations. so the good news is that adding motivation doesn't seem to be so difficult, the bad news is eliminating motivation seems to be incredibly easy.\n