Deanna Hartley's Page

A recent study challenges the commonly held notion that ranking employees — essentially comparing their performance to that of their peers — works well as a motivational tool and suggests that it can actually backfire on managers.



It’s oftentimes thought that rankings can enable a workforce to become more competitive, causing high performers to work harder to maintain their rankings and those with lower rankings to put in the extra effort to try to catch up with their… Continue

It may sound funny at first, but it turns out that’s a valid question managers ought to be asking themselves.



Say, hypothetically, that your subordinates view your personality as controlling. If, in the midst of performing valuable work, they were subliminally subjected to your name, recent research shows they would unconsciously begin to perform the task poorly. This research was outlined in a recent… Continue

I recently attended a conference in which noted author Dan Pink spoke about the science of human motivation.



Even though money, praise, recognition, etc., certainly serve as ways to motivate employees, Pink argues that there are three key elements for effective motivation for more highly creative, conceptual tasks: autonomy, mastery and purpose.



I want to spend a moment talking about the first in greater detail: autonomy over task (what people do), time (when they do it),… Continue