On Treats and Bonuses

Every day I take my dog to one of the nicest dog parks in the city.  The people with dogs are for the most part interesting, intelligent people who love their dogs and treat them well.  Whether their dogs are young or old, on lease or off, these kind companions always have a treat ready for them.  If the dog comes to his loving companion, that calls for a treat.  If he retrieves a ball, as may be his nature, he gets a treat.  If the dog lets someone pet him, he gets one.  If the dog enjoys being petted, he gets one. If he finally stops barking at another dog or a person, he gets one. If the dog leaves the park, that means one more treat.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a dog get a treat for taking a treat.

Anyone watching the constant flow of special rewards would have to think well of both the dogs and their generous caretakers.  Almost any dog trainer will tell you that there is no better way to train or condition one’s dog to do what his benefactor wants than by giving him treats to motivate him.

Large organizations like professional sports teams and highly competitive corporations give bonuses to their employees to reward them for doing their very best at work.  Young professional athletes are oftimes given bonuses just for signing a contract to join the club at a very high salary.  Stock brokers can get bonuses larger than their salaries for being even more successful than anticipated.  These bonuses are awarded to recognize successful efforts and to keep the best and brightest loyal to the organization.  Absent these bonuses, the organizations could lose these super achievers to the competition since it is only normal for people to want to get the very most for their excellent efforts.  And isn’t this what free enterprise capitalism is all about - producing excellence by finding and rewarding the best in the field?

Who could object to treats for obedient dogs and bonuses for high performing professionals?

Me.

I love my dog.  I feed him, groom him, pick up after him and walk him every day.  I take him to his favorite park where he can meet and greet his favorite canine companions.  He gets love, food, exercise and a wonderful environment in which to live.  Those are his treats.  He does what I want him to because he cares for me and trusts me, not because he is conditioned to expect to get a good-tasting treat .  He knows that what I do is best for him and he wants to reciprocate. I don’t need to give him treats to win his love, respect or obedience.

While this may seem like a radical idea, think about human relationships. Do we carry treats around to give our friends and relatives as rewards for being with us or for doing as we would like?  Do we give our children some money or food every time they do their homework, go to school or take a bath?  Do husbands give their wives a special present if they are especially good in bed one night or permit them to have sex at all? ( OK, that might be a bad example.)

And while many economists will tell you that in order to compete in a business environment you must offer rewards to encourage senior members to do their utmost to succeed for themselves and their organization, I strongly disagree.  They will tell you that while they pay their top people very well to do their very best, it is essential to pay them extra if they do even better than their very best. Again, I beg to differ.

How does one do more than his very best?

Would Barry Bonds have been less interested in winning the home run crown if he had not been promised $18 million a year to do it?  Would Michael Jordan have played better if he had been offered bonuses to supplement his high salary?  Will our stockbroker try harder to pick the best stocks for us if he knows that he will get a bonus? And why would we suppose that the benefits such as pride in one’s work, wanting to help others or being loyal to an organization and its members are not reason enough for a person to do his/her very best?  Why do we actually insult them by saying that we know that they can do better than they are normally willing to do but for the prospect of even greater reward? That greed is the greatest motivator.

Recent studies have found that offering bonuses to people doing creative work, did not increase their productivity or creativity.

But even if people do not perform better when offered an extra reward, what’s wrong with giving people more?  What’s wrong with giving dogs treats even if they are unnecessary? Isn’t it nice to be generous and even nicer to be the beneficiary of generosity?  Isn’t this extra reward system at the root of capitalism, free enterprise and the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest which leads to a better strain of the breed?  Why else should people and dogs perform better?

My answer to all these questions is that the more we emphasize extrinsic motivation, the more we de-emphasize and dwarf intrinsic motivation.  The more we bribe our dogs and employees, the less they are likely to function out of love, respect, compassion, loyalty, identification or even the joy of accomplishment or pride in one’s own efforts - life’s natural, organic, motivators.

When my dog was young, he ignored treats.  When offered them he would spit them out.  He had learned somehow to associate getting a treat with then having to do something that he did not enjoy, like being put in a cage at the groomer’s where he had to  wait for hours to be released only to be attacked with scissors and nail clippers and then soaked in soapy water.   I think that he figured if he declined the bribe, he would also avoid the payment for it.

Now that he is an older dog in his golden years (he actually is golden), he wants treats and they are everywhere.  Every day some very nice human dog companion offers him a treat.  Sometimes he sees it or smells it and begs the person holding the goodies to spare him one.  If he got one, he would want a second and a third, while even having only one treat could very easily upset his delicate digestive system causing him to lose control of his most toxic material. The result could be an accident in the living room made worse by not seeing it before stepping into it.  Worse yet to not notice until you have carried it throughout the residence leaving parts of it embedded in every carpet.

Much the same has been happening to people who are eligible for bonuses in their chosen field.  I see CEOs, stockbrokers, athletes and entertainers (not that athletes aren’t entertaining) changing their behavior because of these large carrots in front of their faces.  They start out in their careers because that is where their talents and interests are.  An athlete usually begins his or her quest at an early age with the dream of becoming really good at the sport and someday doing it professionally.  When the select few make it to the big time, the pros, they want to be the best that they can be.  They want to keep their position on team and help their friends and teammates succeed as a group.

When large bonuses seduce the athlete into changing his hopes and dreams, the behavior can change dramatically.  Look at all the athletes who have been caught cheating in order to improve their already great performance and talent.  We see it in baseball, football and know that it is probably rampant in basketball too.  The bonus-hungry players are the ones who violate the rules and also disengage themselves from their team and teammates.  They are not playing for the team or for the joy of the sport -intrinsic motivators.  They are playing for more money and fame - extrinsic ones.

We have seen the effect of bonuses on stockbrokers.  We forget that many started out loving what they did and wanting to do their very best to help their clients and their brokerage house.  We have seen CEOs betray their employees, customers and stockholders in order to garner greater extrinsic rewards.  We have even seen it with entertainers who lose sight of the reason they chose to perform replacing it with dreams of bigger paydays which would lead to more and bigger homes, and more stuff to put in and around them.

In short giving extra treats to motivate behavior is neither effective nor beneficial to any of the involved parties.

So I say let us end the practice of giving treats and bonuses in order to get our dogs and highly paid people to perform better.  Let us build our society around a culture filled with intrinsic motivation like love, compassion, loyalty, integrity, responsibility, accomplishment and lots of kisses (at least for the dogs and the hard working spouses).  Let joie de vivre and savoir faire joins forces to create a dolce vita for our dogs and people.