The first is about the connection between monetary rewards and the quality of each individual?s contribution. Kohn has very well pointed out how, generally speaking, money could undermine quality, by replacing with the reward, the real aim of each individual?s contribution that, from the company?s perspective at least, should be not only quantitatively, but also, if not primarily, qualitatively distinguishable.
This is maybe true for those kinds of contributions in which no perceivable value could be added by the worker?s knowledge and experience.
But what about knowledge workers?
Salespersons? incentive systems for instance, are generally tailored proportionally to the importance of the deal, and this is definitely measured with the amount of money it will eventually bring to the company. Negotiations in these cases require plenty of experience, know-what and know-how to close the sale and we can say by no doubt that quality is prerequisite to success. High monetary rewards are in this case tied to high quality performances, in the sense of the value added by the individual to the transaction. And salespersons facing a difficult negotiation usually have enough autonomy to let the task be much more than interesting for them.
Assuming for a moment that monetary rewards can work as the main motivators for this people so, the key question could be: is the behavior resulting from this rewarding policy in line with the expectations of a knowledge intensive organisation? Is the knowledge worker, in other words, motivated to collaborate and to share his expertise? Could money boost collective performance taken as a whole rather than as the sum of the individuals?
This should be our main concern when designing rewarding systems for knowledge intensive organizations and the answer to the previous question is no, of course.
I?m not saying anything new with this, but at the same time I think Marshall Industries? example mentioned by Kohn is far from being used as a best practice for most of the business organizations in a highly competitive market.
I do still consider monetary incentives valuable for high performers. Maybe the worst aspect in them is the fact that they are predetermined, so loosing the simple meaning of a prize. The best on the other hand, is for sure their contextualization, the fact that they are tide to each single task or group of similar tasks.
I think there should be some form of hybrid rewarding focusing on both the results (being this way an a-posteriori prize for a good job, maybe not predetermined) and the general social working environment (an a-priori constant indirect motivation for the doers that begins far before any specific task, as A. D. Amar has underlined in his note published on the KB).
By the way none of the above, and this is the second consideration, will ever be applicable in organizations in which any knowledge sharing activity is considered a diversion from the main productivity track. But this is a completely different point?
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David Gurteen
David having a meal in the Old Singapore Market, October 2008
I help people to share their knowledge; to learn from each other; to innovate and to work together effectively to make a difference!
