On Negative Motivation

The essence of negative motivation is to punish an employee for something they did that harmed the company or for actions that their superiors perceive as detrimental to the company.

This is quite old the paradigm of “an eye for an eye,” which has not been relevant in our culture for a couple of thousand years. In our culture, it is relevant love However, if we strip away the fluff and look at the specifics, it turns out that any negative motivation is essentially struggling with the fact , which has already happened, that is, a struggle that is pointless.

Negative motivation directed at a conscientious employee who makes an accidental mistake, or at a hardworking employee who naturally makes more mistakes than others, is pointless. We punish a person for their activity and trigger the “log paradox” within them. They start to fear taking action to avoid making mistakes. The best approach is to have a positive “debrief” with such an employee, identify the problem and the source of the error, and help them ensure that these mistakes do not happen again.

Negative motivation directed at a routine worker who makes regular mistakes is also pointless, as the fear of making mistakes makes such a worker slow and ineffective. In these cases, addressing mistakes should focus on implementing quality assurance systems. There should always be two pairs of eyes, not just one. Moreover, the second pair of eyes should not be the direct supervisor of the employee. Otherwise, the supervisor will always be frustrated by “the mistakes they have to correct” and by the feeling that “nothing can be trusted to anyone.”

Negative motivation aimed at a person whose actions show deliberate intent is equally pointless. The company simply does not need this person, and spending the company’s resources on motivational measures of any kind is useless. The company has no need of such a person and should part with him. Negative motivation kills the social contract and puts a formal one in its place: you must not, because it would be shameful, vs. you may, but for money (a fine). More on this here.