It is difficult to overstate the extent to which most managers—and the people who advise them—believe in the redemptive power of rewards, Alfie Kohn argues in “Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work” (September–October 1993). Certainly, the vast majority of U.S. corporations use some sort of program intended to motivate employees by tying compensation to one index of performance or another. But more striking is the rarely examined belief that people will do a better job if they have been promised some sort of incentive.
A version of this article appeared in the November–December 1993 issue of Harvard Business Review.