If you've ever used anything powered by electricity, then you should thank Michael Faraday. He revolutionized our understanding of electricity.
Faraday invented the electric motor, the electric generator, the Bunsen burner, electrolysis and electroplating. He also discovered electromagnetic induction and metallic nano-particles (thought to be the birth of nano-science). He is considered one of the most influential scientists the world has ever seen.
The really interesting thing about Faraday? He was never taught science, and dropped out of school at age 14 to work as an apprentice in a book-binding shop. So what was it about Faraday that pushed him to read every chemistry book he could get his hands on, attend lectures, and correspond with Sir Humphrey Davy of the Royal Institution?
Intrinsic motivation.
He did these things because he loved doing them. He wasn't paid to attend lectures (in fact, he couldn't afford to purchase the tickets and relied on complimentary tickets from acquaintances). He initially received no monetary compensation whatsoever for his scientific work. As a result of his love for science, he paved the way for our modern understanding of electricity and magnetism.
Would Faraday have been as successful if he had been paid to be a scientist? Perhaps not. Some think that when we are paid to do something we would gladly do for free, our intrinsic motivation is "crowded out" by this external compensation (an extrinsic motivation). We cease to do think, create, or invent for the sheer joy of it, and begin to think, create or invent because we are paid to do it. Once we lose that joy, our thinking may be less clear, we encounter creativity blocks, and our inventions become incremental rather than ground-breaking.
This is a fundamental concern when thinking about performance-based pay for researchers, scientists and creatives. If we use performance pay to encourage and reward innovation, will it actually have the effect we want? Or will it crowd out the intrinsic motivation?
Many researchers and practitioners think that performance-based incentives can't work for these kinds of employees. Dan Pink has an interesting presentation in which he argues that monetary incentives really only work for routine tasks; once we move into those tasks requiring creativity, those monetary incentives backfire. People become hung up on the performance metrics and whether they are doing enough to earn the monetary reward, the creative tasks become cheapened because they are monetized, and become too uptight to have their best ideas come forth and flourish.
While there is certainly a risk of this occurring, I think that performance-based incentives can work for researchers, scientists and creatives. The key is finding a way to construct them so that the extrinsic motivation reinforces the intrinsic motivation. To do this, we need to think carefully about what drives these scientists to do what they do.
Faraday did science for the love of science. Thousands of "Citizen Scientists" do science in their basements and garages for the love of science. It gives them with a creative outlet, occupies their minds in new ways, and provides a sense of freedom. Freedom to work on the ideas they find interesting. Freedom from the constraints of micro-management, rigid drop-dead dates, and bureaucracy. Freedom from monotony. Freedom to be autonomous.
If we can find a way to structure performance-based incentives to increase autonomy (whether actual or perceived), these extrinsic motivators will reinforce the already-present intrinsic motivators, and we can help our R&D departments soar to new heights.
In my next post, I'll share some thoughts on how we have to become "Citizen Scientists" to solve the challenge of supporting intrinsic motivation with external rewards.
Stephanie Thomas, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Cornell University and the Program Director for the Institute for Compensation Studies (ICS) at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Throughout her career, Stephanie has completed research on a variety of topics including wage determination, pay gaps and inequality, and performance-based compensation systems. She frequently provides expert commentary in a media outlets such as The New York Times, CBC, and NPR, and has published papers in a variety of journals.
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