To all those who say that Money Does Not Motivate …

Many people have the belief that money does not motivate because they have not seen it work.  That is mostly because it is rarely done right.  The business world is filled with examples of poorly conceived bonus programs that were supposed to provide incentive but instead created enmity, envy and a new level of apathy.

Creating a well crafted compensation structure that pays more based on performance is difficult to do.  Many times, a manager will try and it will be a disaster (most are!) and then give up.  He will firmly agree that money is not a good motivator.  That is wrong.  It just wasn’t used properly.

Money is the very best motivator, when and only when, the compensation structure is designed well to be Tiered, Equitable, Timely, Simple to compute, Meaningful, Objective, Reinforced and Easy to qualify for.  I know.  I’ve been doing it for 30 years and owe my success to motivating thru money.  For the sake of brevity, I’ll skip over the part where I screwed up for 25 years figuring it all out.

But trust me, done right, Money truly does motivate.