The researchers then tried “paying” the monkeys to solve the same puzzles and, astonishingly, the monkeys became worse at the puzzles, made more errors and started to have less interest in them. Psychologist Harry Harlow, Pink notes, had recognized “intrinsic motivation,” the fulfilment of the task itself, as something that trumped the materialistic payment.

Culture is Stronger Than Money

Then Harlow abandoned this research on intrinsic motivation because it did not pay well. … (Just joking!) We can only speculate why, but Pink perhaps gives us a clue. He writes that Harlow left “rather than battle the establishment.”

This is the key for me. We all tend to do the things that the culture in which we exist tells us are the right things to do. We tend to comply with culture, and this provides us with a very powerful motivation for change.

I quit smoking about 12 years ago, not because I was paid to quit but simply because the culture changed. It became increasingly socially unacceptable to smoke. More and more of the people around me were quitting smoking. More and more places were “non-smoking.” Most important, more and more colleagues and clients would react with open disapproval when they noted I am a smoker. I was willing to risk the cancer but not constant social disapproval. I would propose the same is true for most people in most organizations.

One of the most powerful behaviors for change is the social pressure. Most people, most of the time, tend to do what the culture around them expects them to do. The reason 12 out of 15 advisors will not develop new business is primarily because the culture of that organization tells them it is “OK” to not develop new business.

I observe the same in the small boxing gym I own and go to in Seattle. Fitness classes are a group activity where you work with a number of partners on a number of exercises. The class is one hour long and quite intense. At the end, you can tell it is hard because everyone’s shirt is dark and dripping with sweat. Recently, we had to cancel one, yet quite a few people still showed up. The vast majority of them elected to simply remain at the gym and just work out on their own.

Here is the thing—at the end of the “self-directed” class, most people had left early. I took no scientific measures, but less than a third of the class actually exercised for an hour. What’s more, even among those who stayed you could tell that they had not exercised nearly as hard as they would in a class. The shirts were not dark with sweat.

We are all perhaps not very good at motivating ourselves, but we are all motivated by the expectations of others. The approval of our peers means much more than the Scooby snack. If you have 12 advisors who do what you want them to do and three advisors who don’t, there is a lot of pressure on the three to comply. If you have only three who comply and 12 who don’t, you have no chance.

Perhaps an idea here is to form teams or groups so you can team up the three performing advisors in a team with another two or three who show promise and separate them away from the others who likely will not change their behavior.