Summary Of Gary Drevitch's Article: The Mystery Of Motivation

In the article, “The Mystery of Motivation,” the author Gary Drevitch, speaks of poorly thought out incentives to motivate good people in forms of cash and social rewards to do their best, but the ending result may actually cause them to be at their worst. Throughout the article, Drevitch gives examples of incentives that have backfired on: companies, schools, banks, fundraisers, hospitals, and even cash incentives or allowances at home. Although, the author gives several example of poorly thought out incentives, he does mention an incentive program that was economically successful. The first example of as bad incentive program that Drevitch speaks of is the Wells Fargo bank and credit card scam that happened in 2011. The author (2017) believes substantial piece of their compensation drove them to act unethically. When bankers were unable to sign different customers up for bank accounts or credit cards, they would target senior citizens, college students, and even illegal immigrants. They would have the clients open accounts up to use for their grocery shopping or gas. While …show more content…
They set their salesman up for success by having competitive pricing on their products versus other soda bottling companies. Their goal to receive their incentive is to beat their personal numbers from the year before. In the article, “The Mystery of Motivation,” the author Gary Drevitch, speaks of poorly thought out incentives to motivate good people in forms of cash and social rewards to do their best, but the ending result may actually cause them to be at their worst. While reading the article, I believe the author is biased to the idea that incentive plans will bring out the worse in people. In my opinion, incentives are to drive high self-motivated individuals to their full potential, to sell a product that a company wants in return on their