At a recent TED conference, Barry Schwartz spoke about how to return morality to business, and the moral importance of wisdom. He said:
And what happens is that as we turn increasingly to rules, rules and incentives may make things better in the short run, but they create a downward spiral that makes them worse in the long run. Moral skill is chipped away by an over reliance on rules that deprives us of the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisations. And moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing. And without intending it, by appealing to rules, and incentives, we are engaging in a war on wisdom.
[…]We need incentives, people have to make a living, but excessive reliance on incentives demoralizes professional activity in two senses of that word. It causes people who engage in that activity to lose morale, and it causes the activity itself to lose morality.
Watch the full video below: