In the hallowed halls of businesses (and business schools) around the world, B. F. Skinner is the hidden king. Skinner was one of the major intellect… - Josh Kaufman

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In the hallowed halls of businesses (and business schools) around the world, B. F. Skinner is the hidden king. Skinner was one of the major intellectual forces behind the “behaviorist” movement in psychology — the idea that biological systems always respond a certain way to certain stimuli. Control the stimuli and you can control the behavior. “Condition” the organism with rewards and punishments, and the organism will learn how to behave. Over the decades, behaviorism has fallen out of vogue in psychology — research has made it clear that there’s far more to behavior than the carrot and the stick. But that understanding hasn’t extended to business practice — in corporations and business-school classrooms around the world, the search continues for the magic incentive that will make people do what businesses want.