Extrinsic Rewards Quotes

When you rely on incentives, you undermine virtues. Then when you discover that you actually need people who want to do the right thing, those people don't exist because you've crushed anyone's desire to do the right thing with all these incentives.

If you pay a child a dollar to read a book, as some schools have tried, you not only create an expectation that reading makes you money, you also run the risk of depriving the child for ever of the value of it. Markets are not innocent.

The rewards system is a powerful driver of behavior and therefore culture.

You can pay people to perform, but you can't pay people to excel.

No one does anything from a single motive.

The misuse of extrinsic rewards, so common in business, impedes creativity, stifles personal satisfaction and turns play into work.

The present structure of rewards in high schools produces a response on the part of an adolescent social system which effectively impedes the process of education.

Rewards can deliver a short-term boost—just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off—and, worse, can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue the project.

If it wasn't for the fun and money, I really don't know why I'd bother.

You read a book, write a detailed review as proof you've read it, and they give you a badge. That's where my competitive nature came out. Give me the badges! I would sit in the library all day, not 'cos I loved reading, just because I needed those badges.

In total, by giving people $30 bonus, Intel lost almost 5 percent of productivity. That's a lot. Now, think about it. You give money because you think this would increase motivation. It actually decreases motivation.

The things that get rewarded, get done

Even though you make twelve hundred bucks a month, if I was making twelve hundred bucks a month to play baseball, I would have done it. I would have stayed.

You can get people to work by using threats or by promising rewards.

You basically get what you reward. If you want to achieve the goals and reflect the values in your mission statement, then you need to align the reward system with these goals and values.

A relentless focus on the outward markers of success can lead to complacency. It can make you lazy.

Be it a trip to the dentist, getting an injection or even coming home with a good report card, my reward always had to be a book. I didn't care much for anything else.