You Can’t Motivate People

Carrots and sticks don’t work. Organizational Psychologists refer to this as extrinsic motivation – motivation that comes from outside of yourself.  The approach is seductive in that it often works in the short run, but is rarely sustainable. As soon as the reward or punishment is removed, the desired behavior disappears. People are hardwired to…

Read More

The Accountability Myth

I frequently hear leaders talk about the difficulty of holding their people accountable. Holding someone accountable is an elusive goal. Even if you can hold someone accountable in any given moment, who has the time, energy and bandwidth to hold someone else accountable on an on-going basis? The only person you can effectively hold accountable…

Read More