Marcus Buckingham Quotes

The things that get rewarded, get done

If you want people to perform better, you reward them, right? Bonuses, commissions, their own reality show. Incentivize them. [...] But that's not happening here. You've got an incentive designed to sharpen thinking and accelerate creativity, and it does just the opposite. It dulls thinking and blocks creativity.

People who get involved with the success of something have to be given at least some share of that success.

For them to perceive the advantage of defeating the enemy, they must also have their rewards.

For some reason, we stopped getting gold stars at some age. It's time to bring them back.

From the time I was growing up, if I felt that there was some, like, pot of gold waiting for me, I don't know that I would have been so motivated.

When rewards go up, people are more inclined to take risks.

Getting a reward for reaching certain sales targets is certainly attractive.

Punishing achievement isn't gonna help anybody. Trying to equalize people by lowering the people at the top, that's not good. All that is is punitive. Why don't you find a way to elevate people at the bottom?

Motivation is undoubtedly the single greatest influence on how well people perform. Most productivity studies have found that motivation has a stronger influence on productivity than any other factor.

If your goal has no inherent reward, you do not have a goal.

Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome

Typically, if you reward something, you get more of it. You punish something, you get less of it. And our businesses have been built for the last 150 years very much on that kind of motivational scheme.

You don't want to make awards the reason you're doing things.

Most of us are not pure self-starters; most people need role models, they need coaches, they need exemplars, they maybe need some discipline or some rewards. We need to be motivated.

I've also long since realized that the way to really engage children is to give out prizes; it's amazing how it concentrates their minds.

Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game.

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

For our teams that do great work, we have a tradition of giving Rolex watches. If you see all the key guys with their Rolexes, that's sort of our Medal of Honor if you do something big.

I don't believe that competitions are important.

What you measure and reward is what you're going to get.

Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.

Call it what you will, incentives are what get people to work harder.

[Referring to political leaders:] Since they take the risks, they need the laurels.

You've got to understand, people are motivated by fun. And they should be.