Back in the days when most of the world made its living by growing its own food under an agricultural model, hunger drove our motivation. If a field lay uncared for, people would starve and communities would collapse. Therefore, farmers needed little motivation to get up each morning and work from dawn to dusk to provide food for their families. As society progressed and resources were organised more effectively by the industrial model, motivation did not evolve in a corresponding fashion. While the responsibilities of workers became more complex and varied, their motivation stayed fixed in their bellies. A miner's or mechanic's motivation to work remained unchanged from that of their agricultural predecessors. If they fell short of their employer's production expectations, they would be fired. Without a job and its requisite pay, industrial workers faced the same circumstance of starvation as the farmers of the past faced when harvests failed.

Paul Bacon

On the morning of March 21st, I felt as though I had fallen into a black hole. The March/April edition of Network HR had just arrived at the door of my office in Tianjin, and there were obvious problems. The arrival of each new edition fresh off the press is usually a moment of great pride for me. However, this time it was different. Even though we had one of the best selections of articles ever (as I am sure many of you may have noticed), there were also some glaring mistakes that deflated my usual sense of pride very quickly.