Daniel Pink TED video

Of remarkable consequence to anyone pushing the pursuit of commission is this Surprising Science Of Motivation TED video of Daniel Pink. He rubbishes the accepted practice of incentivisation. Plenty of studies show bonuses do not lead to better performance. It’s quite amazing. He concludes:

• Intrinsic incentives work whenever mental effort is required
• They beat carrots and sticks every time
• If-and- then (contingent) rewards often destroy creativity
• The secret to high performance is the unseen, intrinsic drive
• And that there’s a mismatch between what science knows and business does

He proposes a new “business operating system” based on:

Autonomy – the urge to direct our own lives

Mastery – the desire to get better and better at something that matters

Purpose – the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

How this maps onto a sales effort is a mind-bending question. One that I sense few, if any, sales operations would be prepared to embrace. How big a wasted opportunity? Imagine a salesteam where you could spend half-a-day a week pursuing something you thought was important outside your normal quota carrying. What if you could decide something specific you wanted to improve and chase it? Tantalising threads…