Lo!, I developed a new management strategy to help with motivating individuals or groups of people to get them to do what you want them to do. Basing this on the popular Carrot & Stick method whereby you dangle a carrot or reward (note: if the subject is a donkey and you are endeavouring to get this donkey to pull you and your cart attached to said donkey, then a carrot would make an ideal reward in this scenario): in front of the subject attached closely to some form of penalty or punishment for failure to comply with your instructions. (Again, if the subject is the donkey / cart situation, you could easily attach the carrot on the end of the stick with which you could easily punish the donkey for disobedience).

The carrot and stick approach is not a new one, however in many business situations it has become over used and subjects whether they be employees, customers or trading partners can detect the ploy, somewhat limiting its effectiveness.

This is where my stategy comes in, I'm calling it the Carrot approach whereby you offer the subject the benefit of the 'Carrot' whether it be bonus, extra margin, better trading terms and immediately afterwards you threaten to strike the subject with the conceptual carrot (if, again, you are the donkey guy then you'd probably need quite a large actual carrot to get to within striking distance of the donkey and I'd therefore recommend using an inflatable or fibre-glass replica since very large carrots are not common and are likely to be very heavy and impractical for this purpose).

So, the Carrot Approach is born. First tempt with the carrot then threaten to beat the crap out of the subject with the carrot.

Obviously in a business context you won't actually be beating the crap out of someone with a carrot (unless you are in the Carrot trade perhaps, negotiating a better deal for the supply of actual carrots or making clear you levels of dissatisfaction about the poor quality of the carrots you are being supplied with, hoping to entice the carrot supplier to take heed of your plight), so ensure that you can turn your conceptual, strategic or real enticement into a blunt instrument of fear. Of course, this isn't always going to be easy, perhaps for example you could threaten an employee whom you are enticing with a $100 bonus for overperformance (the carrot), that unless they deliver results worthy of a bonus, you will deduct $100 from their standard package.

This is likely to confuse the subject considerably, rendering useless any defensive counter-ploys they adopt to body-swerve the traditional Carrot & Stick approach.