The policy of carrot and stick is as old as ages. It is perhaps the oldest policy of management which has withstood the test of time. While, there are hundreds of different theories of motivation in management books which are designed for the more civilized and modern societies, yet none can match this age old policy.
Every organization tries to induce their employees by giving them rewards for the desirable acts (carrot) and punish them for the undesirable deeds (stick). This is the theme of every religion which gives the temptation of heaven and paradise for the good work while threatening to send wrongdoers to hell. In the modern times, almost every society and nation have a criminal justice system which wields the stick by punishing the wrongdoer with severe punishments. Though there is hardly a reward for going good work by the justice system, but by implication there is a reward, since a law abiding citizen enjoys full freedom while a wrongdoer is put behind the prison which severely curtails his freedom and force him to lead a life of discomfort and isolation.
Every commercial organization knows the importance of rewarding their best professionals who are paid exorbitant salaries so that they work hardest in the interest of the organization. The less competent people are given low salaries and slow promotions. If they are found to be too bad or inefficient, they are thrown out of the organization.
It is, therefore, difficult to believe that some organization like the Governments in India can work without this carrot and stick policy. Here, the promotions are time bound or based on seniority and the increments are uniform. There is no difference between a person who performs well and those who does not work at all. It would be interesting to understand as to what drives people to do good work in such a system which does not provide any carrot to the best employees or punish the worst one.
The Terror of Carrot and Stick Policy
The fundamental assumption in the carrot and stick policy is that the employees are not interested in doing the work assigned to them. They work only for money. Hence the more money you pay the better services you shall get. Thus carrot policy is the acknowledgment that human beings are driven only by greed.
In the same way, the other assumption is that some people work only under fear. These people are not greedy as they are satisfied with their low salaries and slower promotions. Hence carrot does not work with them. These people must be threatened and coerced to do job. Hence the policy of stick is applied against them.
Though, it is extremely logical to have a carrot and stick policy in an organization, but in reality this policy takes away all the joy and human values from the life of an employee as it does not acknowledge the divinity of human nature and fail to award the goodness in human being. A person who provides maximum benefits for the organization (mostly short term) is the one who reaps the highest dividend while one who tries to look beyond the measurable parameters and tries to pour values and humanity in the organization is left behind.
The Fun of Playing
Many of us play different games to keep ourselves fit and healthy. However, for some people, these game are their profession and they earn their living from it and make millions of dollars from it. It is important to understand that most of us play games not because we wish to win or even to get better health or become champions. We play because we love playing these games. Most of us play these games without any monetary or other forms of rewards. Therefore, even when we lose, our opponent does not become our enemy. In all likelihood, we become better friend and the spirit of team work is strengthened. We thank our friends for playing with us (even when he defeats us) as we enjoys those moments irrespective of the consequence of the match. In any case, we have enjoyed the time of togetherness and gained health due to our actions.
Now imagine, that every game become a tournament. Hence if you loose, you are out of the game. If you win, you get financial rewards and you rise to the next level. We can easily see that in such cases, we play to win and we hate losing. The person, who makes us lose the game, becomes our enemy. Though, we try to do our best, yet unfortunately, there can be only one winner and others have to lose. Hence it is obvious that our chances of win depends on as much as our own efforts as on the efforts of the other people. If others work harder, we are bound to lose, even if we have tried our best. We become jealous of others, if we cannot defeat them.
Therefore, in a competitive match, though we had become better player but we have also become worse human beings as we wish to win by hooks or by crooks.
It is therefore, important to know that if people love the job and add value to the society and their organization in doing the job, they shall do the job irrespective of the temptation of rewards or the threats of punishments. The recognition given by the people and the satisfaction of the client is a reward in itself which may not be monetary but it fulfills the soul and provides happiness and joy to the person.
