The Carrot Principle

By: Adrian Gostick, Chester Elton

Narrated by: Adrian Gostick, Chester Elton

Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Find out how the best managers use recognition to engage their people, retain talent, and accelerate performance.

The Carrot Principle reveals the groundbreaking results of one of the most in-depth management studies ever undertaken, showing definitively that the most successful managers provide their employees with frequent and effective recognition. Drawing on case studies from leading companies, including Disney, DHL, KPMG, and Pepsi Bottling Group, best-selling authors Gostick and Elton show how the transformative power of purpose-based recognition produces astonishing results. And they show how great managers motivate employees to excel by offering constructive praise and meaningful rewards, and in doing so achieve higher productivity, engagement, retention, and customer satisfaction.

This exceptional program, sure to become a modern-day classic, presents the simple steps to becoming a Carrot Principle manager and building a recognition culture in your organization. Following these steps will make you a high-performance leader and take your team to a new level of achievement.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.; Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2007 O.C. Tanner Company. All rights reserved (P)2007 Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

fantastic listen

If you could sum up The Carrot Principle in three words, what would they be?

Informative inspiring thought provoking

What other book might you compare The Carrot Principle to and why?

This book is similar to the referral machine.

Any additional comments?

I need to listen to this one again. Its a constant barrage of good ideas, and you can't really take it all in in one listen. Too much good info!

Not bad, but not enough examples

Would you try another book from Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton and/or Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton ?

Probably not

Has The Carrot Principle turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, on the contrary, if you are looking to believe in the concept of employee recognition, they give plenty of numbers and studies that back up the idea the recognizing and rewarding employees is the way to go, however, I found the words 'study', 'research', were way overused. I just wanted to know how to do it better than I am already doing.

Great ideas that make sense

The thought of recognition seems very simple but is definitely overlooked. I’m excited to incorporate this in our organization.

Good information

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

The information they provide is useful and informative. However, they are both a bit pretentious and they swap back and forth during the reading. Both of those annoyed me, but get past them and there really is useful stuff here.

How could the performance have been better?

Use one narrator.
Do not pronounce your "s" as "z".
It is not prO-ject. It's Proh-ject.
And so forth.
Nit picky? Maybe, but they talk in your ear for quite a while and it gets old.

What did you learn from The Carrot Principle that you would use in your daily life?

Management principles.

Real Recognition, Not Cheap Tricks

The book uses an evidenced based approach to support the use of recognition as a strategic advantage. Some of the ideas for recognition are a bit over the top, like hiring a barista to fix your team coffee as they come in or a singer to sing someone their favorite song at work, but most of the examples are not only doable, but needed!

Great read !

Love the Principle of how to energize our team members. We have learned a lot from this book. thanks

mostly just opinions

I recommend skipping this book. The authors offer very little research and what data they do have is only correlations. They also make a giant leaps from what the data says to their final conclusions and in other instances rely completely upon their opinions.

Recognition =/= Rewards

The authors cited several studies in order to legitimize their advice. However, their advice took giant leaps from the management science, which simply doesn't support the authors' proposed practices. For example, one of the significant findings they cited was that leadership of companies are rated higher on all aspects of their leadership when the management of the companies recognize employees for good work. Then the authors give all sorts of advice and examples on which rewards (that cost money) managers should give employees. Recognition does not mean rewards, and in fact, there is a body of scientific study that shows that receiving rewards actually diminishes people's motivation. I wish the authors had acknowledged this and instead gave advice on how managers can become great at giving positive feedback.

Yes, recognition is important. But the authors use a poor interpretation of recognition throughout the book.

They devote a large chunk of one chapter talking about goes individual recognition is appreciated, whereas generic and team recognition is much less impactful. Then their ideas for recognition chapter was packed full of ways to show appreciation to an entire team. Definitely some incongruity there.

The introduction and first chapter are valuable. The rest of the book does not live up to the book's promise.