This blog entry is a contribution I made to the W. Edwards Deming interest group on LinkedIn. I will be posting a follow-up entitled “Primal Poodles #2″ today or tomorrow.
Psychological reductionism has created a system of belief in which the behavior of people is reduced to actions toward or away from some specific stimuli. The theory suggests that one can employ rewards and/or punishments to “motivate” (i.e. manipulate) people to behave in the ways one deems desirable for his or her purposes. Why is this theory of human behavior problematic?
Clearly, external stimuli do affect behavior. For example, throughout human history fear has been employed as a motivator to manipulate behavior. The recent debate over water-boarding demonstrates just how persistent our belief in fear-as-a-motivator is. There can be no doubt that fear moves people to action but just how predictable is the action that flows from the administration of fear? Will fear cause people to behave honestly or will it cause them to do ANYTHING they can get away with in order to ameliorate their feelings of fear?
Motivators
The evidence for the efficacy of fear as a universal motivator for producing desired outcomes is hardly convincing. As often as not, fear produces counteraction in which those being “motivated” seek to subvert the power exercised by the manipulators. What are these counteractions? Such counteractions are limited only by the imaginations of those being manipulated. In other words, counteractions are intended by those being manipulated, to be deceptive and unpredictable.
Are there better motivational gimmicks that can be substituted for fear by those interested in manipulating the behavior of others—-rewards for example? As with fear, it is clear that rewards also affect the behavior of people but again, how predictable are the outcomes? Will rewards cause people to behave more honestly and predictably or will they cause people to do ANYTHING they can get away with in order to receive the reward? Recent events on Wall Street demonstrate just how much we believe in the power of “motivators” and just how unpredictable will be the outcomes.
The paradigm of reductive psychology seeks to discover the magic keys to human action. Those who hold to this dogma believe that if they can just discover and apply the right set of “motivators” people will act in the manner in which they want them to act. The paradigm of behavioral manipulation pervades our society. It is to be found in our workplaces, our educational system, and our community and family life. The use of “motivators” does affect behavior—-in dangerously unpredictable ways!
There is another theory of motivation. In a systems view, people simply are genetically motivated toward becoming integrated into the social system into which they are born. In the absence of perverse external motivators such as fear and greed, they will act to construct shared meaning with others in their tribe. They will seek out recognition and approval from others by positioning themselves in a relationship of responsibility to others. They will seek to work with others to formulate shared aims and through collaborative action, realize those aims. When these human motivations are allowed to reign freely, shared aims, methods, and efficacy produce gains by which the tribe and each of its members, wins. There is, as W. E. Deming said, the opportunity for all to experience “pride and joy in workmanship”.
The psychological view invites us to apply motivators. The systems view suggests that we need to remove obstacles to collaborative action and let people get on with doing what they do best—-creating value for the tribe. Observations, when viewed through the lens of theory, can be used to support both views. In the long run, the most important question is which view produces the most desirable outcomes while minimizing the undesirable contradictions.
