What a leader should know about extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. 

Basically, motivation is divided into extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation works through reward or punishment, whereas intrinsic motivation means that people are motivated by themselves.

Critics might now object that they really cannot be responsible for the self-motivation of their employees. And besides, there are also many jobs that consist of simple and not particularly interesting tasks, for which no intrinsic motivation is to be expected. Both objections have their justification. For some people, their work is simply routine and a means to an end. But there are fewer and fewer of them, at least in our latitudes. And yes, everyone is basically responsible for their own motivation. But what you can do as a leader is not to diminish the intrinsic motivation of your employees by treating them as machines. If I turn a certain wheel, the result is always the same. If I pay my management a bonus, for example, they work better. According to the latest behavioral studies, however, this causality is often a fallacy on closer inspection.

Please understand me correctly. I firmly believe that people make the best possible decision for them at any given time. In the 20th century, when the Frederick Tayler founded Taylorism, the world was a different place and extrinsic motivation was probably the only way to keep people in line. In today's world, I don't accuse anyone of deliberately treating their employees as "machines." Nevertheless, leadership tools are still used that, in most cases, have long since belonged on the trash heap of outdated beliefs. Not because they are old and everything old is bad, but because we simply know better in the meantime.

If you've gotten this far and you still want to know which tools I'm talking about specifically - here are my top 3 common beliefs in business that have been scientifically proven to miss their mark and are therefore open to question:

Bonus payments lead to better performance

Probably the most common form of reward is additional payment for a specific result. The theory behind this is that people perform better if they are offered the prospect of a reward for doing so. Various experiments show that this is not the case in more ways than one. I found two results so astonishing that I am happy to share them here.

1. Material rewards have a significant negative effect on intrinsic motivation. In other words, it means the following: If someone is already doing something on their own anyway, and you give them extra money to keep doing it, they are less likely to do it. Isn't that amazing! There are so many social science studies and experiments on this topic that it's just scary that we still cling to this type of motivation.

2. Material rewards can lead to riskier decisions. This finding can be traced back to an experiment by brain researcher Brian Knutson, who discovered that the prospect of a prize floods a certain area of the brain (nucleus accumbens) with the happiness hormone dopamine. This is exciting because the same basic psychological process also occurs when taking cocaine, nicotine or amphetamines. He further discovered that activation in the nucleus accumbens favors risky choices and risk-taking mistakes. Kind of like playing roulette in a casino....

Objectives increase efficiency

Setting goals is great. They help us try harder and focus better. However, the non-negligible side effect of them is, they narrow our focus. If there are complex or creative tasks to be solved, setting goals limits our ability to think far-sightedly. This ability, however, is essential for finding innovative solutions. And not only that. Focusing on achieving a more short-term goal, affects our ability to see the long-term consequences of our actions. A group of economists from Havard Business School and a few more, describe it this way: Goals can cause systemic problems in organizations - attributed to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased risk-taking, poorer collaboration, and diminished intrinsic motivation. Therefore, be careful when using targets in your company.

A little pressure never hurt anyone

True. Unless you want creative solutions. And that doesn't mean inventing the egg-laying lollipop, but simply solving problems for which there are no standardized processes in the company yet. In order to find heuristic (deviating) solutions, time pressure, for example, is pure poison. If you combine this time pressure also with a material reward...well, you're already somewhat into the topic now, you can imagine it. Of course, this phenomenon has also been researched through experiments. The "candle problem" is often used in this area. Sam Glucksberg, a psychologist at Princeton University, found that subjects took an average of three and a half minutes longer to solve the candle problem when they were under time pressure with the prospect of reward than when they were not. So much for time pressure and its effects on our brain's performance.

Of course, there are still situations in which this "if-then" motivation works wonderfully and is even goal-oriented at best. In a world in which we assume more and more intrinsic motivation and self-determination, however, obviously less and less. It is therefore worthwhile to undermine common methods and find new possibilities.