The Econ 101 manager assumes that everyone is motivated by money, and that the best way to get people to do what you want them to do is to give them financial rewards and punishments to create incentives.

For example, AOL might pay their call-center people for every customer they persuade not to cancel their subscription.

A software company might give bonuses to programmers who create the fewest bugs.

It works about as well as giving your chickens money to buy their own food.

One big problem is that it replaces intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is your own, natural desire to do things well. People usually start out with a lot of intrinsic motivation. They want to do a good job. They want to help people understand that it’s in their best interest to keep paying AOL $24 a month. They want to write less-buggy code.

But petty megalomaniac ceos think they can motivate to work extra hours via money.

And ignore their disruptive unproductive management styles, office setup, idiotic and misunderstood "agile" processes, and basically fail to deliver useful products in time.

Me, I'm about deliverables, ie, working code, not "team building" or similar business facades.

Good luck to you wordsmiths and confidence-men er consultants.