Why commission doesn’t help us solve problems.

In a test conducted by Harry Harlow, it was found that monkeys solve puzzles faster and more reliably if they’re not motivated with food. It speaks agains the notion that we have that work needs to lead to money and more work needs to be awarded by more money.

If instead we are trusted with solving problems, if we’re expected to solve problems we are faced with, we solve them in a better, faster way, and with even more consistency.

Just think about that for a second. We’re more likely to solve the problems that we face if we’re not motivated by our surrounding to do so.

What work is all about is to solve problems. Whether that is to make a company go around by selling stuff or if it is developing a new way to make employees of a company healthier doesn’t really matter. It’s all about problems.

That’s the reason to why we need to solve the problems are interesting to us. We need to make sure that the problems that we have in front of us are interesting enough to not make the extrinsic reward important.

We need to do the work that we can’t not do, because it’s worth doing.

That’s when we’ll excel. That’s when we’ll have productivity and flow. And that’s why commission won’t help us do it.

When commission is introduced, the focus is taken away from solving the problem long term to solving the problem short term in order to make more money. When we’re motivated to do work because of an extrinsic reward, i.e money, we loose track of the intrinsic reward. It’s basic psychology.

What we as working people need to do is to keep our focus locked on the intrinsic motivation. What companies need to do is to help workers keep that focus. The extrinsic rewards won’t do that.