• One a day maintains the mental sharpness.
• A massive dose cures most management ills.

But be careful. These are powerful ideas. Take too many and you may never be the same again!

- Glossary, Streetwise Motivating & Rewarding Employees

"If a rat in a cage pulls a lever and nine months later (on the anniversary of his arrival in the laboratory) you give him a cube of sugar, he's not likely to connect cause and effect."

- Steven Kerr, General Electric, Leadership Development Center


"One company decided that providing good customer service meant answering phones before the fourth ring. Their incentive program measured and rewarded employees who answer the phones in three rings or fewer. And that's exactly what the company got: People would pick up the phone after three rings, greet the caller and then set the phone down. As the old saying goes, be careful what you ask for; you just might get it."

- Bob Filipczak, Editor, Training Magazine


"Implementing a poorly designed or ill-suited incentive plan can do more harm than good because employees will inevitably receive mixed, even conflicting, messages from the organization about its values and priorities, leading to confusion and frustration. Incentives are no substitute for good management."

- Donita S. Wolters, Manager of Human Resources, JMM Operational Services, Inc.


"There is abundant evidence that interest and performance decline over the long run when people feel they are controlled by incentive systems or any other management system."

- Teresa M. Amabile, Brandeis University


"Year after year we ask employees what motivates them, and year after year they reply: a sense of accomplishment in performing the work itself, recognition from peers and top management, career advancement, management support, and, only then, salary."

- Andrew M. Lebby, Senior Partner, The Performance Group


"Consider an administrative assistant who routinely spends 50 to 60 hours a week at her job because she finds her work challenging and prides herself in its quality. A $25 employee-of-the-month gift certificate and a month of front parking in appreciation of her efforts are hardly equal to her consistent commitment of time and energy. In fact, to some extent, they actually demean her contribution and ignore the intrinsic motivations that are the real incentives behind this performance."

- Frank C. Hudetz, Chairman & CEO, Solar Press, Inc.


"In one Milwaukee company, which had an annual Employee-of-the-Year award ceremony, I had an opportunity to meet with the year's winner. I was surprised to learn that she was not proud of her award. She was embarrassed by it. She saw the whole ceremony, with all its hoopla and pizzazz, as an occasion invented by managers, so that they could pose as employee-sensitive."

- Peter R. Scholtes, author, The Team Handbook


"At General Electric's leadership development center in Crotonville, New York (where I work), we try to get managers to bring those lofty mission statements down to earth. Imagine you're at a party a year from now, we tell them. You're celebrating the successful completion of a big project in your division. How exactly did your leaders, peers, and subordinates change their behavior to reach this goal? We don't accept imprecise answer. What do you mean your people have become empowered? Do they participate more in meetings? Do they feel free to constructively criticize their superiors? Did they find a solution that boosted sales or improved quality or cut costs?"

- Steven Kerr

"If you want people motivated to do a good job, give them a good job to do."

- Frederick Herzberg


"Intrinsic motivation (loving what you do) is completely different from extrinsic motivation (doing something to get a goody)."

- Alfie Kohn, Author, Punished by Rewards


"Control is such as important psychological process that it affects our very brain chemistry."

- Peterson, Maier and Seligman, in Learned Helplessness


"That happy people are helpful people is one of the most consistent findings in all psychology. No matter how people are cheered...whether by being made to feel successful and intelligent, by thinking happy thoughts, by finding money, or even by receiving a posthypnotic suggestion...they become more generous and more eager to help."

- David G. Meyers, Hope College


"Optimism and hope...like helplessness and despair...can be learned."

- Daniel Goleman, Author Emotional Intelligence


"Intrinsic motivation...being motivated by challenge and enjoyment...is essential to creativity."

- Teresa M. Amabile, Brandeis University


"Make people who work for you feel important. If you honor and serve them, they'll honor and serve you."

- Mary Kay Ash, Founder, Mary Kay Cosmetics