1 00:00:00,12 --> 00:00:07,194 Hello, my name is Lalin Anik, and I'm a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for 2 00:00:07,194 --> 00:00:15,30 Advanced Hindsight at Duke University. Prior to starting my postdoc here, I 3 00:00:15,30 --> 00:00:19,409 received my PhD in marketing, from the Harvard Business School. 4 00:00:20,420 --> 00:00:23,720 My PhD came at the expense of a life long hobby. 5 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:27,137 I was a swimmer for nearly two decades of my life, which is a majority, majority of 6 00:00:27,137 --> 00:00:31,234 it. And, being a national swimmer meant that 7 00:00:31,234 --> 00:00:38,210 I swam 25 hours a day, 8 days a week. And for such a long time, it's very hard 8 00:00:38,210 --> 00:00:42,942 to be constantly motivated. At the beginning, when I start around age 9 00:00:42,942 --> 00:00:46,580 6, I was motivated by the physical activity. 10 00:00:46,580 --> 00:00:49,880 Later on, when I started competing, it was the adrenaline rush and winning that 11 00:00:49,880 --> 00:00:53,316 got me going. But much later in my career, it was the 12 00:00:53,316 --> 00:00:58,770 mental and aspect of swimming. That I loved, but when I look back two 13 00:00:58,770 --> 00:01:05,620 decades of doing the same activity meant different types of motivation throughout. 14 00:01:05,620 --> 00:01:09,400 To be motivated means to be moved to do something, to be energized towards an 15 00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:14,535 action, and when you think about it. You if, when you think about an 8-year 16 00:01:14,535 --> 00:01:18,495 old doing one task, let's say swimming versus an 18-year old swimming, you need 17 00:01:18,495 --> 00:01:22,690 to provide them with two different motivators. 18 00:01:22,690 --> 00:01:26,720 And, an 18-year old kid will not really be motivated by money, which is the most 19 00:01:26,720 --> 00:01:30,880 common incentive we use. If they win, we can give them a medal, 20 00:01:30,880 --> 00:01:34,352 but if we give them a $100 bill, they, they will not be swimming 5 hours a day, 21 00:01:34,352 --> 00:01:38,343 with that $100 bill. They might be happy, happy at the 22 00:01:38,343 --> 00:01:43,170 beginning, but they'll forget that. And, I see this very similar in life. 23 00:01:43,170 --> 00:01:47,379 We might not be using money, we might, we should not use money with adults for 24 00:01:47,379 --> 00:01:51,78 every type of task. Because, might not, it might not be the 25 00:01:51,78 --> 00:01:54,40 best incentive. This becomes more obvious when we think, 26 00:01:54,40 --> 00:01:58,860 when we start thinking about the past 5 years and the global economic crisis. 27 00:01:58,860 --> 00:02:02,581 Money is scarce and we should start to think about money and incentives in 28 00:02:02,581 --> 00:02:06,381 different ways. I, I think of this as similar to a car 29 00:02:06,381 --> 00:02:10,568 metaphor. So historically, we use cars and we, we 30 00:02:10,568 --> 00:02:15,266 use gasoline to fuel cars. But, as as the population of the world 31 00:02:15,266 --> 00:02:19,600 increases, we're running out of our gas, gasoline reserves. 32 00:02:19,600 --> 00:02:24,223 And as a result, we need to find new, environmentally, healthy, and friendly 33 00:02:24,223 --> 00:02:28,510 sources, fuels. And same with our, with ourselves our 34 00:02:28,510 --> 00:02:33,64 bodies and our souls are vehicles to move towards aims in life and many might not 35 00:02:33,64 --> 00:02:38,980 be money like gas might not be the most sustainable incentive. 36 00:02:38,980 --> 00:02:43,402 We need to find normal ways and psychologically health healthy and more 37 00:02:43,402 --> 00:02:47,980 happiness-friendly fuel for our for our vehicles. 38 00:02:47,980 --> 00:02:51,564 So today, I'm going to talk about incentives, other than money that we can 39 00:02:51,564 --> 00:02:56,138 use to motivate people and their labors. In the first part, I'm going to try to 40 00:02:56,138 --> 00:02:59,504 answer this question, what are some of the incentives, other than money, we can 41 00:02:59,504 --> 00:03:03,673 use to get people going? So, rather than fuel, let's think about 42 00:03:03,673 --> 00:03:07,760 electricity, wind, and water energies. And in the second part, I'm going to ask 43 00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:11,225 this question, can we use these novel types of incentives with every type of 44 00:03:11,225 --> 00:03:15,60 task? Meaning rather than car, shall move 45 00:03:15,60 --> 00:03:21,254 towards hybrids or shall we go back to bicycles, our old ways of moving around? 46 00:03:21,254 --> 00:03:24,926 So, let's start out with thinking about some of the ways some of the incentives 47 00:03:24,926 --> 00:03:31,766 we can use other than money. historically, we have used money to money 48 00:03:31,766 --> 00:03:38,600 to reward individuals, their labors and performances. 49 00:03:38,600 --> 00:03:41,740 And we have actually used individual incentives. 50 00:03:41,740 --> 00:03:46,78 But as humans, we're social animals. We spend 80% of our waking hours in the 51 00:03:46,78 --> 00:03:49,895 company of others. So, why not use this natural social 52 00:03:49,895 --> 00:03:55,454 disposition we have to motivate people. And this way, we can move away from 53 00:03:55,454 --> 00:03:59,650 individual incentives, towards more social incentives. 54 00:03:59,650 --> 00:04:02,890 And what, what is called, in the literature, as social motivation. 55 00:04:02,890 --> 00:04:07,316 What do I mean by social motivation? It means this energy and fuel we get from 56 00:04:07,316 --> 00:04:13,48 the social context of our lives. So with Dan Ariely and our collaborator, 57 00:04:13,48 --> 00:04:17,16 Michael Norton, we partnered up with global giving to, to, to test this power 58 00:04:17,16 --> 00:04:22,8 of social motivation. Global Giving is a non-profit that works 59 00:04:22,8 --> 00:04:28,380 with grass roots projects around the world and that connects them to donors. 60 00:04:28,380 --> 00:04:31,916 And you can, you can go on this website and find a charity of your interest, that 61 00:04:31,916 --> 00:04:37,228 interests you, and donate to this cause. Whether there, these are hungry kids in 62 00:04:37,228 --> 00:04:42,961 Africa or earthquake victims anywhere. And what we did is that we ran a bunch of 63 00:04:42,961 --> 00:04:46,220 experiments online with them. So if you were a participants in these 64 00:04:46,220 --> 00:04:49,620 experiments, you would go online, pick a charity of your choice, and we would tell 65 00:04:49,620 --> 00:04:53,270 you about the behaviors of everyone else who sees this who sees this charity, and 66 00:04:53,270 --> 00:04:58,909 we would give you a percentage. For example, we would tell you, 10% of 67 00:04:58,909 --> 00:05:02,996 people who saw this charity donate to this cause or you would hear 100 percent 68 00:05:02,996 --> 00:05:08,268 of people, everyone who saw this charity, this cause donated. 69 00:05:08,268 --> 00:05:12,111 And what we find is that providing people with this information about other 70 00:05:12,111 --> 00:05:16,15 people's behavior gives them motivation to donate this cause now, as well as 71 00:05:16,15 --> 00:05:22,89 commit to donating in the future. And what we find is that 70% is this key 72 00:05:22,89 --> 00:05:25,878 percentage. This point, where telling you that 70% of 73 00:05:25,878 --> 00:05:29,970 people, not hundred, not everyone, or not 50, but 70% of, if 70% of people donate 74 00:05:29,970 --> 00:05:33,752 to this cause, that you, you are also going to commit to donating today and 75 00:05:33,752 --> 00:05:39,657 also you will sign up to for recurring donations. 76 00:05:39,657 --> 00:05:45,478 Why, why could this be happening? because, it's knowing that, you know, 70% 77 00:05:45,478 --> 00:05:50,600 of people are joining a cause, possibly legitimizes the act. 78 00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:53,416 It tells you that this is a worthy cause and you should, you should also join in 79 00:05:53,416 --> 00:05:56,730 this movement. Let's take another example. 80 00:05:56,730 --> 00:05:59,420 There's this website called kickstarter.com. 81 00:05:59,420 --> 00:06:04,92 It's an American-based crowdfunding website where you can post up a project 82 00:06:04,92 --> 00:06:08,60 that you need funding for and you ask everyone around the world that this is 83 00:06:08,60 --> 00:06:14,280 American-based, so the Americans to donate to this cause. 84 00:06:14,280 --> 00:06:17,700 And, let me give you an example. Let's say that there are two projects. 85 00:06:17,700 --> 00:06:23,0 There are two painters and they both need funding to rent a space, a studio space. 86 00:06:23,0 --> 00:06:26,726 And they need money for paint, for canvas so that they can, they can do their art, 87 00:06:26,726 --> 00:06:30,236 and then, they can have exhibits and possibly make money, let's say from their 88 00:06:30,236 --> 00:06:34,894 art. And when we're visiting these two mm, 89 00:06:34,894 --> 00:06:40,223 causes on Kickstarter website. on, on one project, you see that no, no 90 00:06:40,223 --> 00:06:43,990 one has donated, zero people, in over 2 weeks. 91 00:06:43,990 --> 00:06:47,305 In the other project, you see that, let's say 50 people have supported this 92 00:06:47,305 --> 00:06:51,220 painter. Which project would you donate to? 93 00:06:51,220 --> 00:06:54,440 If you're like most people, you would you would stay away from this cause that was 94 00:06:54,440 --> 00:06:57,410 supported by no one. Because you would think, is this a 95 00:06:57,410 --> 00:06:59,650 legitimate course? Is this worthy of my money? 96 00:06:59,650 --> 00:07:04,162 And why didn't, everybody else, donate? But it, when you see 50 people donating 97 00:07:04,162 --> 00:07:07,244 to this cause, you will want to donate, because there's this element of being a 98 00:07:07,244 --> 00:07:11,228 part of a community. Let's think about another example. 99 00:07:11,228 --> 00:07:16,979 So, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. That has open-source open contribution 100 00:07:16,979 --> 00:07:19,350 model. So everyone around the world can sign 101 00:07:19,350 --> 00:07:23,610 come and sign up. And they will contribute information. 102 00:07:23,610 --> 00:07:28,680 with no monetary compensation in return. But why do these people do it? 103 00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:33,40 It's basically for this feeling of being a part of a, a community. 104 00:07:33,40 --> 00:07:36,816 By giving information, sharing information, and contributing to 105 00:07:36,816 --> 00:07:42,410 Wikipedia, we become a part of this group who shares interests and needs. 106 00:07:42,410 --> 00:07:47,348 So it, it drives their behavior. So far, we have talked about social 107 00:07:47,348 --> 00:07:51,750 motivation, and being a part of community as potential incentives other than money, 108 00:07:51,750 --> 00:07:57,890 or besides money, to is to motivate people's labors and contributions. 109 00:07:57,890 --> 00:08:02,60 Let's switch gears quickly and talk about some other motivator. 110 00:08:02,60 --> 00:08:05,950 In this case, money is one currency we can use to motivate people. 111 00:08:05,950 --> 00:08:08,244 Let's think about an alternative currency. 112 00:08:08,244 --> 00:08:12,692 An alternative currency would be time. Just like money, it is they say time is 113 00:08:12,692 --> 00:08:15,337 money. It's a very significant aspect of our 114 00:08:15,337 --> 00:08:18,340 lives, and when it's gone, it's lost forever. 115 00:08:18,340 --> 00:08:21,553 I can, if I lost $10 yesterday, I can probably get it back, but when yesterday 116 00:08:21,553 --> 00:08:25,415 is gone, there's no turning back, I need to move forward. 117 00:08:25,415 --> 00:08:31,512 So rather than giving people money, why, why shouldn't we give them time? 118 00:08:31,512 --> 00:08:36,336 Google got this right they have the 20% time program where they, they tell their 119 00:08:36,336 --> 00:08:40,892 employees that they can spend 20% of their time on projects that are unrelated 120 00:08:40,892 --> 00:08:45,774 to work. 3M did something similar to have a 15% 121 00:08:45,774 --> 00:08:50,121 culture where their employees, employees can spend 15% of their time on 122 00:08:50,121 --> 00:08:55,620 initiatives and projects that are of their own choosing. 123 00:08:55,620 --> 00:08:58,527 Why is this important? By by giving people time, their 124 00:08:58,527 --> 00:09:01,601 employee's time, Google and 3M acknowledge that their employees are 125 00:09:01,601 --> 00:09:05,99 individuals who can, who can control their time and who can have freedom and 126 00:09:05,99 --> 00:09:09,340 autonomy. Autonomy is very important as a 127 00:09:09,340 --> 00:09:12,444 motivator. Best Buy also understood this, because 128 00:09:12,444 --> 00:09:16,104 they have this program where their employees can do whatever they want, 129 00:09:16,104 --> 00:09:20,8 whenever they want it, without any schedules and without any meetings as 130 00:09:20,8 --> 00:09:26,42 long as they get the work done. And the idea here is, again giving their 131 00:09:26,42 --> 00:09:30,620 employees autonomy over their time, and possibly over their happiness. 132 00:09:30,620 --> 00:09:35,174 And this way, people can concentrate during the time that they're actually 133 00:09:35,174 --> 00:09:39,530 working, and then, be more creative and flexible during those 20%, of 15% of our 134 00:09:39,530 --> 00:09:45,170 time, of their time. So these are three of many variables we 135 00:09:45,170 --> 00:09:49,590 can use or incentives we can use besides money to incentivise employees or 136 00:09:49,590 --> 00:09:54,154 incentivise as people and labor in general. 137 00:09:54,154 --> 00:09:59,54 But can we use these incentives in every situation or in every task, every type of 138 00:09:59,54 --> 00:10:03,324 labor, or is there something about certain types of labor that make these 139 00:10:03,324 --> 00:10:11,320 different types of incentives possible so we have a social disposition to be. 140 00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:14,22 We talk about the social disposition as a social motivator. 141 00:10:14,22 --> 00:10:16,913 let's take this to a different type of task and I'm going to give you the 142 00:10:16,913 --> 00:10:20,539 example of Lionel Messi who is arguably the best soccer player in the world and 143 00:10:20,539 --> 00:10:25,256 he plays for Barcelona. If we take him, he's very good at, he's 144 00:10:25,256 --> 00:10:28,840 very good at soccer and if we take him to El Clasico, which is one of the biggest 145 00:10:28,840 --> 00:10:32,424 derbies in the world between Barcelona and Gran Madrid, and we put him in a 146 00:10:32,424 --> 00:10:39,152 stadium of 80 to 100,000 people, he's probably going to perform really well. 147 00:10:39,152 --> 00:10:42,428 And, so will a lot of professional soccer players. 148 00:10:42,428 --> 00:10:46,430 But what if we take Messi and get him into the stadium or in front of 80 or 149 00:10:46,430 --> 00:10:52,590 100,000 people and get him to cook or knit, or play [UNKNOWN] . 150 00:10:52,590 --> 00:10:55,672 This is conditional on the fact that he's not really good at these or he doesn't do 151 00:10:55,672 --> 00:10:59,690 these much. what, how will he perform? 152 00:10:59,690 --> 00:11:04,620 Will he perform at his beyond his base line level? 153 00:11:04,620 --> 00:11:09,645 the poet Zion in 1960;s said that talked about this idea of social facilitation 154 00:11:09,645 --> 00:11:14,0 paradigm and what he said is that having people around, the social presence of 155 00:11:14,0 --> 00:11:19,550 others will motivate us. But he, what he showed is that if the 156 00:11:19,550 --> 00:11:23,570 task is something we're familiar with, having other people around will get us to 157 00:11:23,570 --> 00:11:27,410 do really well on that task, but if the task is null and we're not familiar with 158 00:11:27,410 --> 00:11:31,790 it, getting other people around will will provide an incentive, incentive and that 159 00:11:31,790 --> 00:11:36,170 will rise our adrenaline, but that will also arouse us and that will actually 160 00:11:36,170 --> 00:11:43,952 disable our performance. What I mean by this is the following, if 161 00:11:43,952 --> 00:11:46,810 we take Messi, he's really good at soccer. 162 00:11:46,810 --> 00:11:50,202 So putting and, and he has auto, automatic reactions, he practiced it 163 00:11:50,202 --> 00:11:53,170 well. So putting him in front of 80 or 100,000 164 00:11:53,170 --> 00:11:57,370 people will get will get him to do this task, this task he's familiar with much 165 00:11:57,370 --> 00:12:01,226 better. But if we put it put him in front of that 166 00:12:01,226 --> 00:12:04,490 many people for a task he's not familiar with, curling or knitting, he's probably 167 00:12:04,490 --> 00:12:09,260 not going to perform at the level that he would if he were doing it alone. 168 00:12:09,260 --> 00:12:12,493 So there's this aspect of social facilitation, having other people that 169 00:12:12,493 --> 00:12:16,498 will, that will incentivise our labor, and our behavior. 170 00:12:16,498 --> 00:12:21,322 Finally I would like to talk about a certain type of task that is quite hard 171 00:12:21,322 --> 00:12:25,930 to incentivise and money might not work well in this scenario, and that is 172 00:12:25,930 --> 00:12:31,600 creativity. Creative tasks are are very interesting 173 00:12:31,600 --> 00:12:38,80 very it, they're very hard to incentivise and motivate with in many different ways. 174 00:12:38,80 --> 00:12:41,162 Let's think about this. Possibly, some of you are authors, 175 00:12:41,162 --> 00:12:45,131 painters, sculptors, and writers yourselves, and please think back to the 176 00:12:45,131 --> 00:12:50,600 time where you started this this hobby. It's probably you had a talent you 177 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:54,840 thought that it's it was enjoyable and it became your favorite pastime. 178 00:12:54,840 --> 00:12:57,890 But as you moved on it life, as years passed and you came to a point where you 179 00:12:57,890 --> 00:13:01,190 needed to make a decision between this task that was intrinsically motivating 180 00:13:01,190 --> 00:13:04,927 for you. And when you looked when you moved away 181 00:13:04,927 --> 00:13:08,227 from your family and you needed to pay for your bill, you probably had to, had 182 00:13:08,227 --> 00:13:11,627 to make a decision whether this task that's intrinsically motivate, motivating 183 00:13:11,627 --> 00:13:16,170 will also pay for your bills. So you came to a fall. 184 00:13:16,170 --> 00:13:19,164 Some of you have quit or put, put this hobby aside. 185 00:13:19,164 --> 00:13:23,511 And, and other people thought that their intrinsic motivation to do it just 186 00:13:23,511 --> 00:13:28,740 overrode the pay that that they were going to receive. 187 00:13:28,740 --> 00:13:33,420 And, this is not, so this, this quandary between money and intrinsic motivation is 188 00:13:33,420 --> 00:13:37,970 not only for, is not only experienced by individuals, but organizations also go 189 00:13:37,970 --> 00:13:42,0 through it and they try to solve it, because they have a lot of employees and 190 00:13:42,0 --> 00:13:49,276 they, if some employees do creative work. So how should employee, how should 191 00:13:49,276 --> 00:13:53,542 organizations motivate their employees to succeed at these creative job, jobs and 192 00:13:53,542 --> 00:13:58,260 be more just be more creative and innovative, innovative? 193 00:13:58,260 --> 00:14:03,885 So, Adam Grant and James Berry ran series of experiments, looking at creativity in 194 00:14:03,885 --> 00:14:08,610 organizations and what kind of motivators should be used to get people to be 195 00:14:08,610 --> 00:14:14,730 creative and they actually approached the US Army. 196 00:14:14,730 --> 00:14:18,314 And they ran, they ran surveys with Security Force officers, asking them 197 00:14:18,314 --> 00:14:22,260 about their job, and asking them how prosocial they are. 198 00:14:22,260 --> 00:14:25,668 This idea of caring about other people, which we, which I talked about previously 199 00:14:25,668 --> 00:14:28,980 about community, in the Wikipedia case, in the charitable donations case, caring 200 00:14:28,980 --> 00:14:34,44 about other people is a main drive. And they looked at that specific drive, 201 00:14:34,44 --> 00:14:39,290 this, and they, they looked at its relation to creative to creativity. 202 00:14:39,290 --> 00:14:42,470 And what they found is that people or security officer, officers who are 203 00:14:42,470 --> 00:14:46,74 intrinsically motivate motivated were more creative, but this but being 204 00:14:46,74 --> 00:14:51,190 intrinsically motivated about a task, a creative task was not enough. 205 00:14:51,190 --> 00:14:55,814 They also needed to be prosocial, they also needed to care about other people, 206 00:14:55,814 --> 00:15:00,914 their supervisors, their subordinates, in order to take that perspective and see 207 00:15:00,914 --> 00:15:08,230 what they would care about in order to be productive and creative at the end. 208 00:15:08,230 --> 00:15:12,12 So, it again comes back to this idea of social motivation that's other than 209 00:15:12,12 --> 00:15:16,160 money, caring about other people, being a part of town, being a part of community, 210 00:15:16,160 --> 00:15:20,430 or just if you are doing some creative job caring about what other people will 211 00:15:20,430 --> 00:15:27,666 think and what other people will need. And as a result, what they found is that 212 00:15:27,666 --> 00:15:31,900 the those security officers who are intrinsically motivated, and also more 213 00:15:31,900 --> 00:15:36,18 were more social and caring about others needs, and were more benevolent had more 214 00:15:36,18 --> 00:15:41,505 access to new ideas. And not only that, that when they had a 215 00:15:41,505 --> 00:15:45,795 bunch of ideas, they were able to pick through them and work more slowly through 216 00:15:45,795 --> 00:15:50,610 these ideas. So today, I talked about two things. 217 00:15:50,610 --> 00:15:55,233 One is I talked about these different incentives we can use other than money, 218 00:15:55,233 --> 00:16:00,132 social motivation, time, and being a part of a community that's get people going, 219 00:16:00,132 --> 00:16:05,377 get people energized. And the second part talked about 220 00:16:05,377 --> 00:16:09,152 different types of tasks, simple versus complex tasks. 221 00:16:09,152 --> 00:16:12,330 tasks we're familiar with versus normal tasks. 222 00:16:12,330 --> 00:16:16,746 And, and that's specifically about creative tasks that that are very 223 00:16:16,746 --> 00:16:22,890 specific to, to, to think about in terms of different kinds of incentives. 224 00:16:22,890 --> 00:16:26,428 So moving forward, well, how shall we, how shall we proceed with these 225 00:16:26,428 --> 00:16:29,310 incentives? And my question there, and this is 226 00:16:29,310 --> 00:16:32,610 something I wonder about is with, with every new generation it seems like we get 227 00:16:32,610 --> 00:16:36,435 everything we want. And, and these, these things that we get 228 00:16:36,435 --> 00:16:40,612 are not dependent even on our labor. they, they might be used as incentives by 229 00:16:40,612 --> 00:16:44,29 our bosses, by our parents, but when we have everything and when a generation has 230 00:16:44,29 --> 00:16:48,927 everything, how can you incentivise them? How can you get them going, and how can 231 00:16:48,927 --> 00:16:51,982 you keep them active for, for labors or for things that they need to do for basic 232 00:16:51,982 --> 00:16:56,360 things? It can be athletic activity, it can be 233 00:16:56,360 --> 00:17:02,340 school homework or it can be just finding a career that they like. 234 00:17:02,340 --> 00:17:07,566 So finally, I would like to part with a quote from a French novelist and 235 00:17:07,566 --> 00:17:12,900 memoirist, George Sand. And she said, work is not man's 236 00:17:12,900 --> 00:17:16,184 punishment. It is his reward, his strength, and his 237 00:17:16,184 --> 00:17:21,352 pleasure. I hope that all your endeavours and all 238 00:17:21,352 --> 00:17:27,953 your work is always pleasure, pleasurable.