Hiring a Lawyers or Paralegal? The Surprising Science Behind Employee Motivation

Yesterday in our legal productivity webinar, Dustin Cole mentioned how critical it is for an attorney to find a great lieutenant, to be the first line of defense to filter all communications.  A good one can even pare down your email and leave you only the crucial ones to resond to.  Kind of a radical idea, but it goes back to the fundamentals as well.

In any case,  finding your lieutenant is a tricky endeavor, even with double-digit unemployment.  And keeping them happy and motivated is another story.

Enter Daniel Pink.  For some reason, I did not hear about this guy until MILOFest last week.  His book, Drive, is a Malcolm Gladwell like survey of science that has direct business application.

Last night I watched his TED talk, embedded below, which has some surprising conclusions about the carrot and stick we’ve all assumed works so well. As it turns out, 40 years of science indicates that incentives actually backfire in many conditions!