I recently watched an excellent TED talk by Neurobiologist and Primatologist Robert Sapolsky on The Uniqueness of Humans. It turns out that genetically speaking, we aren’t all that unique. In fact, the genetic difference between humans and primates is fairly negligible. Which may put paid to that old adage, ‘If you pay peanuts, you’ll get monkeys,’ because from a genetic point of view you kind of get monkeys anyway. But I digress.
In his highly informative and amusing talk, Mr. Sapolsky presents some fascinating facts related to what primates and humans have in common with respect to behavior and motivation. For example, behavioral scientists used to believe that people feel pleasure when they receive a reward for the achievement of a goal but this is actually not true. Most of the pleasure, as measured by dopamine levels, occurs in response to the anticipation of the reward. In both primates and humans, the dopamine level drops off dramatically once the reward is actually received.
Even more interestingly, the dopamine levels are significantly higher if an element of risk is introduced. In fact, the highest level of dopamine is found when a reward is received only 50% of the time, which represents maximum unpredictability. If you change the frequency of the reward to, say, 25%, 75% or 100% you also decrease the pleasure of anticipating the reward. In other words, if the reward occurs too frequently it is taken for granted and if it occurs too infrequently it is perceived as a write off.
Obviously there is more to motivation than getting rewarded 50% of the time. The takeaway here is that when coupled with other factors, the combination of anticipation and risk can greatly enhance motivation when it comes to rewards. So, if the goal is to control behavior, clearly defined goals combined with predictable rewards may work best, even if they lack that ‘wow’ factor. However, if the goal is to motivate people, too much predictability may have the opposite effect. Food for thought.
What else can we learn about motivation from our primate friends? Well, like humans, primates are capable of engaging in teamwork. And like humans, they engage in 'tit for tat' behavior when it comes to cooperation. Of course, people rarely have the luxury of choosing their team mates in a professional setting, or pummeling them if they fail to perform, but the impulse to ostracize slackers is the same across species. Which is why people can get a real chimp on their shoulder when rewards don’t differentiate between high and low performers.
Primates are also capable of culture, which is a non-genetically transmitted behavioral style. That’s right, culture is contagious. Whether we’re talking about people or primates, new members of aggressive tribes pick up aggressive behaviors and new members of cooperative tribes pick up cooperative behaviors, regardless of their own native personalities. Monkey see, monkey do. It is also worth noting that culture is defined by the dominant members of the tribe, which means that having a cooperative culture requires cooperative leadership.
When it comes to designing rewards strategies, Robert Sapolsky’s research seems to indicate that we can learn a few tricks about motivation from our primate cousins. After all, both people and primates enjoy feeling anticipation, react negatively to perceived unfairness and adopt dominant cultural behavior patterns. Many great companies already incorporate these lessons.
However, the best companies go a step further and tap into what makes humans special and unique. For example, people are capable of believing in something greater than themselves. People are willing to wait longer to be rewarded. And only people believe they can ‘make a difference.’
What if every person at your company believed they could make a difference?
I’ll just leave you with that thought.
*Picture courtesy of The Smithsonian.
Laura Schroeder is the Product Manager for Compensation Solutions at Workday, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA. She has more than twelve years of experience designing, developing, implementing and evangelizing Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions in the US, Asia and Europe. Her articles and interviews on HCM topics have been published in national and European trade journals. She currently lives in Munich, Germany and enjoys reading, writing and spending time with friends and family.
Monkey look nice ... thanks for posting
Posted by: Process Management,Australia | 01/27/2010 at 11:14 PM