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1-Page Summary of Payoff

Overview

Dan Ariely’s book, Payoff, is a companion to his TED talks. His research focuses on motivation and the role of reward in motivating people. In one talk, he explains how he helped a woman whose teenage sons were badly burned after an accident with boiling water. He realized that helping her was meaningful for him because it gave him purpose and meaning in life.

Human motivation is influenced by numerous factors, including the use of meaning to counteract feelings of helplessness. Motivation is eliminated when people realize that their work has no meaning. This scenario often occurs in corporations where the explanation of what a project means and why it’s important isn’t seen as an investment in motivation but rather as time wasted on unnecessary details. When work has meaning, people are productive, and they’re especially productive when they enjoy what they do every day. However, when work doesn’t have any meaning or purpose behind it, even if you like what you do every day at your job, you’ll be unproductive because there won’t be anything driving you to perform well.

Similarly, people value their work more if it is more difficult. This, however, does not mean that the results are objectively better. The intrinsic reward of doing good work is often hard to quantify and may be different for each person. Therefore, monetary rewards may not always be the best way to motivate people because they put a price on things like commitment and compromise which aren’t easily quantifiable. Instead, recognition or relationship growth can be used as rewards because these do not have an objective value associated with them.

Key Takeaways

If a person finds meaning in their work, they will be motivated to complete it. If the meaning is taken away, then they will not find motivation to do the same job. In order for people to have motivation at work, managers should invest themselves in making sure that employees’ jobs are meaningful and rewarding. When this happens, there will be an increase in productivity because people value what they’ve created or had a hand in creating.

To motivate employees, companies should provide recognition and other non-monetary rewards. Monetary compensation is often ineffective because it’s hard to quantify things like goodwill. People are motivated by a desire to have an impact on the world and symbolic existence after death.

Key Takeaway 1: If work has meaning, a person will be motivated to complete it, even for lower pay.

People are more motivated when they know the work they do is meaningful. It doesn’t have to be significant on a large scale; it just needs to be graded or retained. The motivation increases even more when people find intrinsic value in the work and continue doing their jobs even without monetary rewards.

The meaning of work is a complex subject. It depends on the culture you live in and your own personal values. In modern times, technology innovators are often valued more than tradespeople or teachers. However, all jobs have some sort of meaning to them because they allow people to survive and lead happy lives. Skilled workers who have been trained for their jobs are just as important as highly educated professionals because without skilled workers we would not be able to function properly in society today.

Key Takeaway 2: People are unmotivated to do intrinsically enjoyable work if its meaning is withdrawn.

When people are forced to do meaningless work, they don’t perform as well as people who enjoy the work. When projects are abandoned because they’re no longer in a company’s best interests, employees can lose motivation if their work on that project is viewed as meaningless by management.