In the day-to-day rush to get stuff done you can sometimes forget where you came from and what you originally wanted to accomplish. 

No journey ever follows the exact path you lay out at the onset.  My, and this business’s journey, is no exception. 

I’m in the process of reevaluation – for myself and for I2I.  Part of that process is to begin where I began.  Many folks forget that step.  They start planning from where they are versus where they wanted to be.

Here’s where I started…Where I WANTED to be…

I2I (and by extension me) Exists To Accomplish the Following:

1. Help companies influence behavior in their organizations in an ethical and sustainable way in order to accomplish their objectives WHILE helping their audience achieve their goals.  The part of the sentence that comes after the word “while” is important.  The MOST important part of that sentence.
2. Help companies understand what really drives employee and channel engagement.  Not the stuff that they see on the web or the stuff they get from their incentive sales person.  The truth.  The reality.
3. Help companies understand that program design is more important than the award.  Anyone can deliver a trophy or a trinket.  It takes a lot more experience (read failure) to design a program that works (see #1.)
4. Get paid for #1-3

Pretty simple plan.  And it has been somewhat successful. 

I’ve helped companies with their employee programs to increase communication and training and reduce reliance on trophies and trips.  I’ve helped client rethink the ways they can engage WITHOUT using awards through social media, new technologies and simply writing better copy in their program and company communications.

And I’ve had some zigs along with zags as I walked my intended path…

• I’ve helped incentive companies market themselves better.
• I’ve worked with incentive companies behind the scenes on program design for their clients.
• I’ve worked with start-ups in the incentive space offering advice and my point of view of the industry.
• I’ve connected companies with similar goals and differing capabilities to create new solutions for their respective clients (not mine unfortunately.)
• I have said yes to every request to help.  Either by directly helping – or by connecting the requester with someone I trust and value so they can help.  Every request.  Every.Single.One.

Many of the zigs and zags outside my “where I want to be” list didn’t pay a dime. 

But I’ve found myself off the planned path more often than expected spending more unpaid time on the zags and zigs.

Therefore, reevaluation.

Just thought I’d give you all the heads up as I go on a professional “Walkabout” if you will.  I’ll have some updates as I ruminate and will be asking for your help.

So… Off I go… Walkabout, Rumspringa, Whatever.

Related articles

• Hey Big Shot! Don’t Think You Have Impact? Think Again. (fistfuloftalent.com)
• Following Up on Award Choices – The Award Stalker (i2i-align.com)
• When To Use Recognition VS Incentives – Advice for 2012 (i2i-align.com)

I can take the high ground sometimes.  Pontificating about how you should run an incentive and reward program.  I can.  Really, I can.

But at the end of the day I know something needs to get done.  Businesses need to see impact, results – dare I say it… ROI.

And sometimes dong the right thing isn’t the right answer.  Sometimes just doing something is better than doing nothing – or even worse – investing in the right thing – and seeing no results.  That’s wasting money AND not getting the outcomes you want.

This concept came home to roost yesterday as I reviewed the various articles on incentives and rewards coursing through the veins of the world wide web.  A school in Cincinnati is getting some heat for running an incentive program to get kids to show up at school.  They offer a $50 gift card to seniors that attend school for a week – underclassmen (or is that underclass people in today’s PC world) get $10 a week (do I smell a 1%-er argument brewing here?)

Some of the comments from the high ground include:

“…Center for Applied Motivation, a Washington-based private consulting agency, referred to the Dohn plan as shortsighted during a Cincinnati Enquirer interview. Director Peter Spevak feels the program offers false motivation and creates a sense of entitlement. Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr. studied similar programs at urban districts and discovered incentives often help increase attendance and positive behaviors but do not bolster increased academic prowess, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.”

Short-sighted and does not increase academic prowess.  Wow.

Sometimes We Need to Focus on What We CAN Control

I find this interesting because the school in question is a “charter” school run by a KIPP – a private foundation.  And… the school is, to quote the article – “comprised of primarily low-income and minority students.”  I read that as “at risk.”

At risk for not completing high school.  At risk of getting into trouble if not in school.  At risk of falling victim to the outcomes that typically accompany too much free time and too little oversight. 

The program is designed to GET KIDS TO SCHOOL.  There is nothing in the design of the program other than that.  The school has a problem.  Kids aren’t getting educated because… wait for it… because THEY AREN’T THERE!

Those on the moral high ground can talk about how this program doesn’t tap into their self-esteem or their intrinsic desire to learn.  And they would be right.

But let me ask this…

Do you think the odds of getting these kids to learn is greater if they are at the school or if they are at home watching MTV (do kids even watch MTV anymore?)

I’m betting that the teachers have a better chance of connecting and helping these kids if they are in the classroom than if they are at the 7-11.

Look At Your Company

Sure…we’d all like engaged, committed and involved employees.  But sometimes the best solution is a simple one – get them to do ONE thing that gives you the opportunity to do 10 more things.

The high ground is a fun place to hang out if you don’t have to get anything done.

Don’t dismiss incentives as bad just because you can’t see the application from all the way up at the top of the ivory tower.  They do work. 

Related articles

• Incentive & Reward Programs Need More UGC (i2i-align.com)
• Annual Incentives Programs Are Bad (i2i-align.com)

I’m going to tell you the one thing no incentive company will tell you. 

Don’t run that recognition and reward program to fix your employee engagement problems.

Don’t do it. Don’t do it.  Don’t do it.

Run a Program Save The World

Here’s the problem.  Most of the time the people tasked with driving employee engagement have no control over whether employees are engaged.  I’m about talking HR departments, “employee engagement” departments, personnel departments.  Typically these departments are given the task of “engaging employees.”  But they CANNOT do anything about it.  Yet they try.

They go to webinars to learn what they could google.  They google what they already know.  They buy a program, system, software, idea, that theoretically enables each person in the organization to drive engagement.  They install the “system” to engage the people.  And they wait.  And it helps a little.

But it doesn’t solve the problem. 

So they go to more webinars, read more white papers, listen to more consultants. 

But the real advice no one wants to tell them is this…

Don’t Run The Program

#Truth: You don’t have poor engagement because you don’t have a reward strategy or system. 

You have poor engagement because your management (read managers – read the people around the table you so want a seat at) all suck at engagement.

Hush Little Baby Don’t Say A Word…

Here’s what bad management looks like and why a program won’t help (paraphrasing here)…

34% of US employees indicate that they fail to speak up in the workplace for fear of some type of retribution.  Factors that affect whether employee “engage” are:

• Constant negative feedback from supervisors and leaders
• Leaders perceived as a dissenting voice (shooting-down new ideas out of hand, or ignoring feedback)
• Fear of demotion or loss of job
• Raising issues draws undue attention to individuals or groups who make suggestions
• Employees perceive that there is no procedural justice (fair use and application of employee feedback)

That is from DecisionWise Inc. and a recent study they conducted.

Read that list again and ask yourself this question…

Would a reward and recognition program fix those issues?

No.

Running a program will simply energize the disengagement you already have creating even more disengagement.

What will fix that problem – and a variety of other engagement issues is …

Better manager training, better hiring, better performance discussions,
heck – better human beings.

Don’t run a program to fix engagement.

Fix your people so they engage.

Then call me about how to reinforce that change in the organization so that it becomes the culture.

Related articles

• Why Do We Love to Work at Companies Where We Don’t Have to Work? (i2i-align.com)
• Another Post About Employee Disengagement (i2i-align.com)

Simulators save lives and money.  That’s why.

Simulating problems and situations before you have to deal with them in real life allows you to learn something in a risk-free environment – risk-free to you personally and to those that may need to rely on your judgment and abilities. 

You might think that since you’re not tasked with the lives of 100+ people every day that simulation learning isn’t something you’d need to do. 

I’d suggest differently.

Choosing the Red Pill

When I was a lad of just 18 years I graduated from high school (my Dad lost that bet between him and my Mother) and left to go to THE Ohio State University.

My goal was to become a teacher. 

A 7^th grade teacher no less.  I wasn’t motivated by money.  I was motivated by the thought that in 7^th grade kids are at a tipping point between becoming contributors or becoming detractors in our world.  I thought if I was a good enough teacher I could help increase the number of contributors and decrease the number of detractors in our society.

I was not a good enough teacher.

Before I Had To Fail… I Failed

One of the interesting things about the education program at THE Ohio State University was a required program for all Freshmen in the education college.  It was called FEEP – Freshman Early Experiencing Program.  The way it worked was you took one quarter of classroom instruction and then in your second quarter you were assigned to a school and a teacher.  You then went to work as a teacher for three months.

I got to find out, pretty much before I had to find out – whether I was cut out for the job.

The fact that I write here and run a couple of businesses tied to driving behavior and am not standing in front of thirty 14 year-olds tells you that the FEEP program was a good idea. 

Trust me.  It was good for me and more importantly, it was good for your kids.

Simulation

I was lucky that I was able to see how my life would be as a teacher early on in my education. I didn’t have to waste time getting a degree, being a student teacher and then being a teacher.  I found out in 6 months it wasn’t for me.  I also was able to do that without causing irreparable harm to an entire generation of children (we have video games, Facebook and Twitter for that now.)

I was in the Matrix.  I failed before failing had consequences. 

And I have vivid memories of what happened during that quarter in front of the kids.  I had disciple problems to deal with.  Evaluations to give.  Kids to counsel.  I learned more in that quarter about myself and about behavior than in all the years since.

And it was because I was in the Matrix.

That is a long lead in to this…

This Thursday’s HRHappyHour – hosted by the always vivacious and entertaining @SteveBoese – one of my tribe members over at Fistful Of Talent and a spiffy internet radio host – will focus on simulation learning.  Steve will be talking with a friend of mine – Kaye Mahon who runs simulation learning events for customer service and employee engagement. 

Full disclosure – Kaye has allowed me to have the privilege of being part of a few customer service simulations as one of the “actors” (you’ll have to tune in to hear more about that) and I’m a raving fan of the technique.  Participants in the simulation are challenged like never before, learn more deeply, fail repeatedly (and get back up) and absolutely love the experience. 

Don’t take our word for it… we ask participants after the sessions what they would tell their boss… they said…

• Wonderful and should be a once a year event
• It was not what I expected but I learned a lot of new information.  How to collect thoughts when things get busy or out of hand.  How to diffuse certain situations.
• I will tell him that it was intense and the best training I have ever had.
• That I learned to be more confident in myself
• We need more of these reality customer service seminars to train other associates to do a better job.
• I’ll tell them that if they want anyone to greatly improve in customer service then send them to this program.  I feel like this has helped me perfect my skills.
• That hands-on interaction that is not passive is a more effective way to learn and experience ideas

Let me ask you this… when was the last time a “training” session got these types of responses from the people who had to be there?  I’m guessing not often.

Tune in Thursday 8 PM ET – hear how Kaye can help you create a simulation – a Matrix if you will – around your training needs and get your people better prepared for the real world and real problems – before they become YOUR problems.

Related articles

• What Stops You From Succeeding? Maybe it’s History. (i2i-align.com)
• YOU Are the Reason Your Recognition Program Failed (i2i-align.com)
• Advice Worth Taking – 8 Non-Reward Things That Are Reward Things (i2i-align.com)

This was originally posted in September of 2007 but it seems to me to be as applicable today as it was 4 years ago.  At that time this site didn’t have as many subscribers or followers so I’m reposting hoping to get some more conversation started around this idea.

We don’t understand our employees as well as we understand our consumers. 

Time and money – lots of both – are spent on the analysis of customers and implementing tactics to get them to be loyal and increase their ongoing engagement with our companies.  But we don’t use the same thinking with employees.

In my experience, most of the time companies look at their employees in huge buckets – two or three demographic segments (male/female, old/young, single/married.)  But we don’t have to.

From an HR perspective – employees are customers and the company is the product.  Why wouldn’t we apply the same thinking and analytics to those customers as we do to our “paying customers?”  I think there is a lot of discussion about connecting with employees – whether that be through training, incentives, benefits, etc.  But I’ve not seen anything that helps an employer truly “see” their employees.

As a professional tasked with helping companies engage and retain their employees, channel partners and consumers, I am keenly interested in knowing what makes people tick.  In the past I would want to know what the major demographic buckets are in order to craft a solution that resonates with the target audience.  These buckets of information were all I had to go on.  I would then create an initiative that resonated with the majority of the audience based on that information.

In today’s world we have the information and the technology to go further.  We have the ability to create initiatives that resonate with a market of “one.”

One-to-One marketing has been around for a while – since Peppers and Rogers first published their book on the subject in 1996.  But I’ve never seen it applied in the employee space.

I see information on “work/life” balance and how that affects employees.  I’m seeing more and more on the need to measure and understand the social connections within an organization as a means to higher performance for the company.  I’m seeing a lot of discussion on the difference between engagement and satisfaction and how that affects a company’s success or failure.  With the coming talent wars (whether you believe it is real or not – there are major changes coming) recruitment and retention are big issues.  There are many, many individual things that HR and Managers in general, need to be aware of to create sustainable performance within an organization.

What I’m not seeing is a comprehensive look at the employee equation.  If you know of one let me in on it.

In the absence of one – or my ignorance of one – here’s an idea.

What does an employee look like on a radar screen?

Let’s create an employee radar. 

What I’m referring to is a graphical representation of an employee that provides a baseline for developing ongoing “interventions” to grow and retain – or weed and eliminate – the appropriate employees for a company.  I use the word intervention in a positive way – not the negative way normally associated with it.

The images below illustrate what I’m suggesting….

This image is a “radar” chart of an employee based on some arbitrary metrics.  The chart however gives one a image of the employee across a variety of elements.  It provides a map for “interventions.”

From a motivation and influence perspective I now have the information I need to put in place a program to drive performance in any one of the areas that improvement is indicated.  The chart would suggest that I need to work with the employee on satisfaction and competency training for current and future jobs.  The chart could indicate that the employee is dissatisfied because they aren’t getting appropriate training for their current job and they don’t see a career path because they don’t have the competencies for any other job in the company. They are engaged but not satisfied.  They are connected (which if they are dissatisfied could be a big problem) but maybe not talking to the right people.

The goal would be to create a personalized plan that results in a radar image that looks like the following….

I’m not suggesting that the image above is the appropriate image.  It may be that at different points in time the image would/should look different. What I am saying is that I don’t know of any proven, ongoing, systematic way of viewing the employee across a variety of metrics that allow a company to create a personalized intervention.

What say you?

Related articles

• Employee Motivation Is About People Connections. Who Knew? (i2i-align.com)
• Why Do We Love to Work at Companies Where We Don’t Have to Work? (i2i-align.com)
• When “Mobile” Recognition Makes Sense (i2i-align.com)

We can spend all day talking about the right award, the right system, the right communication package that will motivate employees at your company.  But at the end of the day, if you want to motivate your people you need to get outside your company and outside your reward program.

You need to get your people to do some meet and greet.

Not unlike that horrible “Undercover Boss” show where substantial rewards are given to select, TV-friendly employees by a clueless and ridiculously incompetent head of a company, getting your employees out from behind their desk and into the stream of the product and service you provide may be the best way to drive motivation in your organization.

And it may only take 5 minutes.

170%+ Increase In Productivity After 5 Minutes

Most reward and recognition companies would kill for a 170% increase in results due to an incentive program.  But without spending millions of dollars on awards and systems to get managers to send a “kudos” to employees The University of Michigan did just that with their contact center employees who solicit donations for scholarships. 

The results come from a study done in 2007 and outlined on the Wharton School website.  Here’s a quote from the post:

In his 2007 study, Grant and a team of researchers — Elizabeth Campbell, Grace Chen, David Lapedis and Keenan Cottone from the University of Michigan — arranged for one group of call center workers to interact with scholarship students who were the recipients of the school’s fundraising largess. It wasn’t a long meeting — just a five-minute session where the workers were able to ask the student about his or her studies. But over the next month, that little chat made a big difference. The call center was able to monitor both the amount of time its employees spent on the phone and the amount of donation dollars they brought in. A month later, callers who had interacted with the scholarship student spent more than two times as many minutes on the phone, and brought in vastly more money: a weekly average of $503.22, up from $185.94.

It all boils down to something the researchers called “task significance.”

In other words, just knowing that what you do has actual impact on someone else increases your desire to better.  I know – I’m going all Dan Pink on you here.  Meaningful work makes a difference. 

Meaningful work does make a difference.  But meeting the people who rely on your work may just make a much bigger difference.

It’s Not Just End-Users

But you might think that getting every employee in front of a customer might be cost prohibitive.  It might.  But getting your internal staff to sit down and talk to the one, two or three departments that most rely on your department’s output isn’t.

Take time to make sure your team knows how their work affects someone else’s work.  Show them the “significance” of their work on REAL people – not departments. 

If a sales person could see – face to face – how their lack of attention on paperwork can impact the invoicing and ultimately the work and output of “accounting” is one thing – seeing how it affects “Bob in Accounting” is quite another.

We talk a lot about virtual offices and teleworkers.  It’s not going away.  But, all that “disconnection” from real people and what they do every day may be doing more to lower your employee’s motivation than the economy.  And throwing up a reward system that is automated out the wazoo may not be as effective as just getting people on the phone, in person, via video chat – whatever, to “see the whites of their eyes.”

That may be all that is needed.  Getting people to get to know people.  How revolutionary.

Related articles

• I Like You – Here’s Some Money (i2i-align.com)
• Motivation and Recognition “Lose Weight Trap” (i2i-align.com)
• We Want Cash – The Commentators Respond (i2i-align.com)
• When Was The Last Time You Recognized the CEO? (i2i-align.com)
• Solve Human Problems With Human Solutions (i2i-align.com)

UGC?  What is UGC?

User. Generated. Content.

Old School – New School

In the days of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble incentive programs to drive more rock breaking at the quarry came with elaborate communication plans.  Big budget program announcements (if you were doing a group travel program the budgets were almost obscene), monthly 4-color update mailings, teasers before the launch of the program, elaborate “pre-trip” (that’s what the industry calls the stuff you got if you earned the trip – badges, passport wallets, “while we are a way” refrigerator magnets) – all were the norm for programs.

All pretty expensive and all one-way communication.  The goal was to get the audience excited and engaged in the program and keep them thinking about earning rewards. 

All designed and written by the agency and the client.  Every comma, verb, semi-colon reviewed and argued about before sending to the printer.  Time consuming and expensive.  Communications budgets could exceed 10% of the program budget.

But new school is different. 

New school is flash emails, video sent via email, html emails with links back to the program site (which is really just and electronic version of the stuff we used to print and mail.)  Incentive companies and clients took to e-delivery of program communications like a fat kid to a Twinkie.

A lot of reasons for that – no typos (oops… fixed it in real time – no lingering evidence… no reprints), no postage, no paper, and ultimately … a lot less cost.

And unfortunately… a lot less creativity and I’d suggest a lot less engagement.

Get Your Social On and Get Engagement

With the advent of e-delivery and online communication of program information I think we’ve lost a lot of what made these programs exciting an interesting.  Now it is too easy to “not see” the communications.  When you’re not online – you’re not seeing the “brochure” that used to sit on the corner of the desk.  When you’re not in your email client you’re not seeing the progress report that used to be tacked on your bulletin board. 

Getting the most out of your investment in rewards means we need to drive more communication about a program and we need to drive more engagement.  Now I know companies aren’t going to go back to the Stone Age and start printing a bunch of stuff but there is a big way to get your audience more involved in the program – and at price points that make a ton of sense.

Enter UGC

I’m a bit surprised there isn’t more of this in the industry.  It would seem a natural progression of program communications.  When you have 60 billion videos watched each month on Youtube and 36 billion photos uploaded to Facebook I smell a trend.

So what does this have to do with your incentive and reward programs?  Well…

Why don’t you allow participants in the program develop and drive the program communications? 

Social Program Communications – A Snapshot

Hey… we live in a social world where we connect everyone to our twitter links and Pinterest posts.  Why not just go with the flow here and get participants involved in the “social” side of program communications.

Here’s a short list of what I’d include (believe me – I got tons more…)

Pinterest for Award Goals

• Let each program participant pick their goals and pin them to a board for the rest of the company to see (some sound psychological reasons for doing this.)  Not into Pinterest?  Then what about a simple drag and drop image to a flickr file that is shared by the participants.

Program Blog Instead of Static “Web Page”

• Too many programs use static websites to announce and describe the program.  What if you used WordPress to create a living, changing site driven by participant engagement?  Allow participants to update their feelings about the program to a blog about the program.  Let them link to their Facebook page and twitter accounts – put that stream on the website.
• Get some managers and employees to talk about what they’re seeing the program do and what they are doing with the program.  Again… the impact of communications from “people just like me” is much more powerful than some management wag telling you how great the program is.

Interactive Progress Reports

• Let the participants go out and see how their performance stacks up with other – use sliders in little Apps that let them drag a slider to one product to another to see how increases would affect their award earnings. 
• Let them issue challenges to each other and then report progress on these challenges to the program population.

For Group Travel Programs – A Natural

• Flickr file for all pics taken on the trip – share and download as you see fit.  Had a great dinner with some new friends but didn’t snap a pic – but they did… upload and download baby. 
• Contests for funniest pic, most romantic, etc.
• A blog specifically focused on the award trip.  Updates on different restaurants on site… different activities… new relationships.  You name it they will blog about it.  It’s easy and I’m guessing there are a fair number of people now on these award trips that either have a tumblr account or use wordpress.com – blogging is not a foreign concept to many of these folks.
• Hashtags for twitter while on site (and for those back home that might want to keep track of what’s going on.)  Before the trip see if you can capture twitter handles and create a list of all attendees.  Share the list and allow people to follow each other on site.  I use twitter a lot at conferences to see where people are and what they are doing – why wouldn’t a group travel award have the same dynamic?
• Set up a Youtube channel and let participants upload videos of what they are doing.  Share and compare.  Participants be sending to friends and family.  Is there a better way to get people who didn’t go on the award trip excited about potentially going next time?  Doubtful.

What Say You?

I’m just scratching the surface.  Social communication and user generated content is here and now.  Why not take advantage of it? 

What do you think?  How would you use UGC to amp up your reward program?

(See what I did just there – I asked for your input and then provided a way in the comments for you to give me ideas – which now everyone can see – so we all get smarter.  That is UGC.)

Neato huh?

Related articles

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Ran across Barry Ritholtz’s post “2011 Investment Mea Culpas” the other day (if you don’t read his blog,  you should, go subscribe.) 

He deals with investment advice and each year he takes a look back and highlights what he did right and what he’s going to change in the future.   His post has nothing to do with incentives and rewards but as I read his list I thought – hmmmm… this list has a ton of applicability when thinking about how you’re going to design and operate an incentive and reward strategy. 

So with apologies and attribution to Mr. Ritholz, below is my bastardization of his 8 things he learned and how you can/should incorporate his ideas into your reward planning process…

Related articles

• Incentives May Not Trump Culture (i2i-align.com)
• Annual Incentives Programs Are Bad (i2i-align.com)
• Solve Human Problems With Human Solutions (i2i-align.com)

Engaged employees are employees connected with the company’s mission and goals and vice versa.  Or to say it a different way – engaged employees want to work.

So it struck me funny the other day when I read a post on Good Business entitled “The Top 20 Perks That Make Jobs Better.”

It’s one of those slide show thingies where you click to go the next slide with about one sentence of information on each one and an interminable amount of wait time between slides.  You know – the kind of thing some of the big sites use to look cool when just a nice bulleted list would be better.  But to my point… roughly half the “perks” that make for a great place to work were… things that allow employees not to work!

• Intel gives 8 week sabbaticals after 7 years (why not make it 7 weeks or after 8 years just for symmetry purposes.)
• Timberland gives paid paternity leave
• Quicksilver allows time for surfing lessons during work hours
• Pantagonia gives paid time off for working on a non-profit project
• Netflix – unlimited vacation

Now, I know these are cool perks but doesn’t it sound funny to say that the reasons we love to work at a place is because of all the ways they give us to “not work?”

Why does it seem that employee engagement strategies many times end up being “take time away from work” strategies?  Could you create a corporate culture where you don’t want to not work?  Or would that just get all the “work-life balance” occupiers something else to complain about.

Nothing really profound in this post.  Just a funny thought about engagement.

What do you think?  I love my job.  I do when I don’t have to. 

Related articles

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Company/corporate culture is a hot discussion these days.  From @zappos (everyone take a drink) and Netflix – every company wants to be the “it” girl of corporate culture.  Culture drives engagement they say.  Much corporate treasure is spent to reward behaviors that drive the culture the company has, or hopes to have.

But recent research may show that your reward program has less effect on culture than you think, and in fact, may be wasted money.

An article entitled “When the brain refuses to take the cash” was published on Futurity.org yesterday that discussed an experiment where they looked at people’s brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they were offered cash incentives to change a belief.   What they found was pretty interesting from a reward and recognition point of view…

“Our experiment found that the realm of the sacred—whether it’s a strong religious belief, a national identity or a code of ethics—is a distinct cognitive process,” says Gregory Berns, director of the Center for Neuropolicy at Emory University and lead author of the study published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
.
Sacred values prompt greater activation of an area of the brain associated with rules-based, right-or-wrong thought processes, the study shows, as opposed to the regions linked to processing of costs-versus-benefits.

Their conclusions – rewards may not affect behavior when that behavior comes from a “sacred belief.”

“Most public policy is based on offering people incentives and disincentives,” Berns says. “Our findings indicate that it’s unreasonable to think that a policy based on costs-and-benefits analysis will influence people’s behavior when it comes to their sacred personal values, because they are processed in an entirely different brain system than incentives.”

A Little Word Substitution Game

Let’s just take their words and play a bit – change “national identity” in the first pullquote to “corporate identity” (and I’d even stretch that to “corporate culture.”)  And then let’s just change the word “public policy” in the second pullquote to something like say, “company values” or company rules, or just go with company policy.

Now think about what the research may be hinting at…

Offering incentives to change how people act in relation to rules/policy in a company where the rules are based on corporate culture/identity won’t be very effective.

Hmmm….. what to do, what to do….

Back to the article:

“Organized groups may instill values more strongly through the use of rules and social norms,” Berns says.

Rules and social norms.  Where have we heard that before… Oh yeah, recognition works on the rules and social norms.

When we have rules (the stated behaviors we want) and we recognize people for doing those behaviors we create social norms.  Therefore, recognition is a better way to reinforce a culture and over time, reinvent it at your company. 

Remember… incentives are “do this then that” awards and recognition is after the fact – not a promised contract for change.

All Culture Change Starts With an Existing Culture

If you are seeking to change your company’s culture remember you are already starting with a culture – a set of beliefs held by your employees. 

Simply adding incentives to change behavior may not work if the change you’re trying to reinforce with the incentive is contrary to a company sacred value – the participant (employee) won’t feel it the in the reward center of their brain.  I’ve set this before – incentives are choice architectures – and this research would seem to say that when incentives are used to change strongly held beliefs they don’t register in the choice part of the brain – therefore – no real “choice” is made.

Now – let me head off some of the haters.  I’m just wool-gathering here – playing with an idea so don’t point out that the research really didn’t say what I just concluded.  I know that.

What I am suggesting is that this research could be interpreted as programs designed to either create, change or reinforce behaviors around culture in an organization should be looked at from a recognition standpoint – not necessarily an incentive point of view.  Especially if the change goes to core beliefs and values in an organization.

If you run a boiler-room – don’t think running an incentive to be more “touchy feely” is going to work.  You’d be better off, over time, recognizing and rewarding behaviors than trying to motivate them.   Remember – those are two different things.

What do you think?  Am I stretching this a bit to make a point or do you think there some some gold flakes in here worth mining?