Excellent post! I want to send this to my HR manager to explain why my boss drives me nuts and fails to motivate me. Your guidelines at the end - that the rules must be clear and that they must be enforced fairly and consistently - are paramount. While I'm not in competition with anyone and am more of an "Explorer" rather than "Achiever," the importance of understanding the system and then doing well at it is still paramount to my job satisfaction (which is nil lately).

I'm bookmarking this for posterity.