The carrot or the stick? Why we all need some incentive

Incentive is a word not often used when people consider their daily lives and interactions with others but it is safe to say that without incentive the very fabric of our society would break down overnight.

How so? I hear you say, well let us consider the basics of incentive. Imagine I wanted to receive lots of comments on this post, if I were to offer £50 for every comment received I think I would probably receive a fair number and that would be the effect of providing an incentive. Similarly I could announce that failure to comment on this post would result in having your legs broken, that of course is a sanction but it could provide an equally effective incentive to comply with my requests if you believed that;

 a) I was serious in my intention and;
 b) I was capable of carrying out the threat.

So incentives can be in the form of rewards or the threat of sanctions.

Employers have known for a long time that if they want to attract the top people into their organisation, get the very best out of them and just as importantly keep them happy and committed then they have to offer decent rewards and incentives. Retailers too realise that its important to offer incentives in order to attract shoppers through their doors. That's why we are bombarded by things such as buy one get one free and other seemingly fantastic offers such as; Buy the moon, nothing to pay in the first year, then 48 easy payments of a trillion pounds and of course the obligatory 99pence!

 If your incentive is to lose weight then we are helpfully encouraged to eat organic weeds, barley water soup and something that looks straight out of a cats litter tray for breakfast. It doesn't stop there, we are also given an incentive to stay on the right side of the law, with monetary fines and the potential loss of your driving license for any misdemeanors. Even avoidance of having a parking ticket slapped on your windscreen is an incentive to pay the correct fee and park within the bay properly. So it seems wherever we look we see incentives and sanctions being used to encourage us to work harder, buy particular products and even to make us comply with the rules that society dictates. 

On a global scale incentives are routinely used to ensure compliance with international law. They play a huge part in inter-governmental diplomacy and relationships, where so called 'rogue states' are offered lots of financial and technological aid if they give up the policies that worry western governments and have economic and other sanctions imposed if they don't.
So do you always need incentives to achieve what you want or need? Well I think you probably do, most people need a carrot to perform at their best or comply to the rules of society all of the time, albeit the benefit they receive may not be in monetary or goods terms, keeping your liberty and freedoms is a powerful incentive to live within the law. And then there are the likes of Parents,volunteers and carers whose likely incentive is more spiritual, or an emotional attachment and a desire to help loved ones achieve a semblance of well-being. So bearing all this in mind perhaps you'd like to comment on this post........for free of course, ..your incentive? well just remember that legs are important! 😉