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    Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done
    Unavailable
    Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done
    Unavailable
    Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done
    Audiobook9 hours

    Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done

    Written by Ian Ayres

    Narrated by John H. Mayer

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Could you lose weight if you put $20,000 at risk? Would you finally set up your billing software if it meant that your favorite charity would earn a new contribution? If you've ever tried to meet a goal and came up short, the problem may not have been that the goal was too difficult or that you lacked the discipline to succeed. From giving up cigarettes to increasing your productivity at work, you may simply have neglected to give yourself the proper incentives.

    In Carrots and Sticks, Ian Ayres, the New York Times bestselling author of Super Crunchers, applies the lessons learned from behavioral economics-the fascinating new science of rewards and punishments-to introduce readers to the concept of "commitment contracts": an easy but high-powered strategy for setting and achieving goals already in use by successful companies and individuals across America. As co-founder of the website stickK.com (where people have entered into their own "commitment contracts" and collectively put more than $3 million on the line), Ayres has developed contracts-including the one he honored with himself to lose more than twenty pounds in one year-that have already helped many find the best way to help themselves at work or home. Now he reveals the strategies that can give you the impetus to meet your personal and professional goals, including how to:

    • Motivate your employees
    • Create a monthly budget
    • Set and meet deadlines
    • Improve your diet
    • Learn a foreign language
    • Finish a report or project you've been putting off
    • Clear your desk

    Ayres shares engaging, often astounding, real-life stories that show the carrot-and-stick principle in action, from the compulsive sneezer who needed a "stick" (the potential loss of $50 per week to a charity he didn't like) to those who need a carrot with their stick (the New York Times columnist who quit smoking by pledging a friend $5,000 per smoke . . . if she would do the same for him). You'll learn why you might want to hire a "professional nagger" whom you'll do anything to avoid-no, your spouse won't do!-and how you can "hand-tie" your future self to accomplish what you want done now. You'll find out how a New Zealand ad exec successfully "sold his smoking addiction," and why Zappos offered new employees $2,000 to quit cigarettes.

    As fascinating as it is practical, as much about human behavior as about how to change it, Carrots and Sticks is sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 21, 2010
    ISBN9780307748966
    Unavailable
    Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done

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    Reviews for Carrots and Sticks

    3.5/5

    16 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Okay, it's kind of dry and heavily weighted towards exposition on principles of behavioral economics. My mom read it and recommended it to me as someone who has real difficulty sticking to commitments. I guess I was expecting more of a self-help tome. However, I was very interested to learn about all the experiments that had been done in getting people to stick to various commitments - such as quitting smoking, losing weight, exercising more, and other, more esoteric, personal commitments. I liked reading about personal commitment from a behavioral economist's point of view - no judgement about what people have or have not been able to bring themselves to do. Just statistics!It was an interesting book, but slow going. I have serious doubts about the economic viability of this guy's website - stickk.com (or whatever it was). I liked the idea of commitment contracts and may eventually commit to starting a commitment contract, lol. We'll see.
    • 4/5
      How to use contracts with real incentives to reach your goals. The goals can be anything, from quitting smoking and losing weight to read more books, be on time or call your grandma more often. The key is to have a contract that says if you do not reach your goal, you will give money to a friend, a charity, an enemy, or teach a class wearing only a speedo. If the threat in the contracts is credible, it allows one to commit. The simplest contracts can be based on self-reporting and honesty, but often there is a designated referee and verifiable information involved. Ayres and Dean Karlan set up a website (stickK.com) that allows people to enter into these contracts. Dean Karlan tried to make voting contracts to enable people to make a credible promise to vote, but although effective, they did not catch on so far. Thomas Schelling was early into this field as many others, he wrote about self blackmail-writing a incriminatory letter to be published if the letter-writer was not drug-free at a later testing. These contracts do not solve every problem in the world, but the changes people actually use them for can make a big difference to them.
    • 5/5
      a great book to understand why we do the things we do and how to get ourselves (and others) to do what we really want to do.
    • 2/5
      There were some parts of this book that were really interesting ( real examples from real companies I.e. Zappos) but most was too technical for my level of interest. I generally like books that explain behavioral economics ( and when you manage others, take-always are always good). These would be ideal for a professor who is teaching a class related to business theories.
    • 3/5
      Authored by Yale professor Ian Ayers, the book discusses topics at the crossroads of economics and behavioral psychology: what self motivates, what motivates others, the use of incentives and disincentives (i.e. carrots and sticks), structuring commitment contracts, loss aversion, incremental rewards, lotteries...and on and on. I found the style engaging initially, though many chapters in, the tone becomes pedantic. Nevertheless, the author has plenty of depth and I can see places in daily life to employ some of the knowledge that Ayers offers. Worth reading.
    • 5/5
      Very detailed and narration is awesome. Gist of the book: habits like reading books may make people happier than habits like losing weight