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.
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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?

As you all know (or should!) I am FOT#3 at Fistful of Talent – THE #1 HR focused multi-contributor blog on internet according to my non-scientific survey tool (I asked other contributors at FOT.)  If you don’t read it you should.  It’s a cornucopia of HR goodness – irreverent and intelligent – funny and fascinating – timely and tongue in cheek.

2012 is a big year for us FOTers – we’re branching out and doing speaking gigs and webinars – and we got one coming your way.  Two of our best are gonna serve up the smarts on Feb 2, 2012. 

Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn are teaming up to present the next Fistful of Talent Webinar: Social Recruiting MacGyver Style! No Money, a Paperclip and Facebook – all a Real HR Pro Needs to Recruit. (Sponsored by the good people at Branchout)

Join  Kris and Tim on February 2, 2012 for this one-hour webinar and they’ll hit you with the following Facebook-centric items:

• Where is social recruiting heading, and why do you need to care as the HR rep of your organization?
• How a 1-2 person shop can compete in social recruiting (with no money, a paper clip and Facebook…)
• Understanding the difference between Facebook Pages vs. Profiles and how it drives your Facebook recruiting strategy
• How to use rarely understood tools like Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Pay-Per-Click Ads to drive Facebook candidates to your open positions
• How to use Facebook search features to locate candidates on Facebook and contact them without looking like a stalker

Register today and the fine folks at Fistful of Talent will send you a special FOT toolkit – “How to Find and Contact Candidates on Facebook without Looking Like a Stalker”, once the webinar is complete.

Register today by clicking here!!

You got the 411 – now go do it!

Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow – or the next day – depends.

Related articles

• The First Of Many? Incentive Companies Due for Rebranding (i2i-align.com)
• Fistful of Talent Podcast – Just a Bit Better Sounding Than A Modem Connecting to the Internet (i2i-align.com)

I took a negative stand and said no manager is going to stop what they are doing and recognize someone just because there is an app for that.  They won’t stop mid-stride and do in the hallway on the way back to their office.  They won’t put the waiter on hold and do it in a restaurant or bar.  If managers think recognition is deserved they will most likely do it during their normal business day via their desk top or some other device that connects with the company’s recognition software.

Read that again – I said “device.” 

I do think companies need to consider various device options when designing their solution – but the REASON to do it isn’t because it will drive more recognition.  Lack of a mobile app isn’t what stops recognition from happening.  It doesn’t happen because managers DON’T DO IT.  I will say it again… Recognition from manager to employee is not a function of convenience – it’s a function of caring!

That said… here is where I think it DOES make sense to potentially have an app to drive recognition…

What if You’re Not A Manager But A Customer?

Friday, last week a reward and recognition company, Globoforce, posted a story about an employee’s encounter with a service technician at their home.   The employee had a great service experience and wanted to give the service tech some recognition.  The process entailed him calling the company, talking to someone on the phone and they in turn (I’m assuming now) had to create a file or piece of communication that went to someone else who then had to verify it and then put it in the system – and THEN the employee got recognized.

Now… THAT is where a “mobile” app makes all the sense in the world!

If the company had a system that had a customer-facing app or website, the Globoforce employee could have accessed the site via his phone or tablet (or even possibly by text messaging a number) recognized the employee, put in some sort of tracking code such as a call number or PO number that would be linked to the service visit to validate the recognition and VIOLA – the employee is recognized!  The system could then send a text to the service technician’s phone to let him know it happened (and to his/her manager as well.)

That’s how you use mobile apps.  Enable something that needs to be enabled by “mobile.”

The idea here folks is look for those situations where being mobile is the CAUSE of the problem – ie: a customer can’t recognize excellent service quickly and easily.

So, maybe I’m not as clueless as some of my commentators from last week’s post thought I was.

What do you think?  Is this a better example of how “mobile” makes sense?

Related articles

• I Like You – Here’s Some Money (i2i-align.com)
• Simplify Employee Recognition! (awardemployees.com)
• Are Mobile Apps For Rewards and Recognition Red Herrings? (i2i-align.com)

Question for you all…

Is having a mobile application for your rewards and recognition system important? 

Is it needed?

Or is it simply a solution in search of a problem?  Is it marketing bluster and me-too-ism?  Is the development of apps and mobile tools to reward and recognize people really something the market needs and wants (and when I say market, I mean the users of reward systems – not the buyer, not the seller.)

I don’t know. 

Based on the seller side of the equation – mobile is the sh*t… everyone is jumping on.

How Is It Better?

I spend a lot of time with clients and companies that provide reward and recognition solutions to clients and mobile is ALWAYS on the agenda. 

Being the smart ass I am I always push back and ask “why?”

The answer, almost unanimously is: 

“With mobile, when a manger leaves a meeting or an interaction with an employee they can just whip out their phone (or other smart device, ipad, tablet, etc.) and two clicks later reward and recognize that person.”

Yeah… I get what the application can do.  But just because they have the application will they recognize people any more, any better?

Here’s where I become the contrarian and say…

Why use the app when I can just recognize them right then, verbally, genuinely, specifically?  Wouldn’t that be even BETTER than leaving the room, stopping in the hallway (‘cuz you can’t really work a phone or tablet while walking – try it…) clicking an app, opening the app, picking the employee out of a list, clicking a button to choose the type of recognition, adding a value if necessary, hitting submit, then confirm and THEN go to your next meeting?

Just doesn’t pass the test of solving a problem.

Recognition has never been a system problem.  It’s always been a people problem.

Creating a Complex Solution to a Simple Problem

The problem isn’t that we don’t have an easy way to recognize and reward people – the problem is… wait for it…

MANAGERSA DON’T DO IT!

Given the scenario most of my clients provide – simple, easy, quick recognition – via the mobile app – I have to ask – is that better than just sitting across the table and saying … “Great job, appreciate the time you put into this and it will make a difference moving forward.  I, and the company, are glad you’re here.”

The manager can then just jot down – “send ecard and award points to Jim/Mary” in their daily planner (analog or digital) – to be completed at the end of the day or next morning when they sit down at the computer (laptop or desktop, home or office.)

I’m I all wet?  Is mobile really about enhancing and encouraging recognition and rewards – or is it just cooler marketing for reward providers?

I know that cool things can sometimes spur activity… just playing with the app will probably increase recognition activity (for a while)  but I really don’t see mobile apps solving any process problem – and that my friend is what they do. 

IMHO, apps solve process problems.  Lack of recognition in most companies is not a process issue. 

What do you think?  Is mobile important?  Does it solve any problem or is it simply the newest, brightest, shiniest object?

I’m in the latter camp.

Related articles

• YOU Are the Reason Your Recognition Program Failed (i2i-align.com)
• Motivation and Recognition “Lose Weight Trap” (i2i-align.com)
• Isn’t It Pretty? (i2i-align.com)

For those under a rock – P2P is where one employee can give recognition to another employee as they see fit.  In many cases these recognition events are without monetary reward – but do provide the employees with a way to highlight performance above and beyond.  What’s nice about P2P is that they are user generated, easy to do, provide some level of control to the employee (a motivating factor in and of itself) and if a management team is smart – helps identify contributors that may be hidden by poor managers, poor systems or lack of proximity to the employee (physically or temporally.)

There are some instances where the P2P awards are put into a monthly/quarterly sweepstakes in order to attach a tangible award to them.  That’s nice, but it’s a game of chance then.  Someone who was recognized by their fellow employees 2,067 times may not ever “win” a monthly sweepstakes but some buffoon in Marketing who held the door open last Wednesday may get the gift card, or plaque, or iPad.  Not always fair when you do the “chance” thing.  Just sayin’.

I personally think P2P programs are openers for any enterprise recognition strategy.  I also think P2P programs need more teeth than simple ecards and sweepstakes.  I believe each employee should be given individual recognition budgets they can use to reinforce company values, mission and specific over-the-top behaviors.

But IGN thinks it’s more about the money than the recognition.

Color me interested, but not invested, in the idea…

“Viral Pay” System at IGN

Last Friday on the HRMorning site I saw a post on IGN and their “unique” system of allowing individual employees to allocate a portion of the company’s profits to fellow employees.  To quote the article on HRMorning:

“Twice a year, in January and July, IGN calculates how much profit there is to share. Based on that figure, it distributes ‘tokens of appreciation’ worth $1 a piece among its employees. Then employees must give all their tokens away to their co-workers.
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Employees can give the tokens to whomever they want, except IGN’s president.
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Workers are not told the names of those who gave them tokens.
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The company does publicize the number of tokens received by top employees, as well as the average amount employees received.
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Managers are also given tokens to give to strong performing employees they feel may have been overlooked in the token giveaway.“
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I like it because, like the post highlights, it does democratize rewards and recognition, and helps identify hidden stars in the organization.

It’s really not “unique” – @zappos (everyone drink!) allocates around $500 in cash to each employee for them to reward as they see fit.  Same thing, they’ve just cut out the “tokens.”   Not sure from my conversations with zappos.com if the awards are anonymous though.

The Good The Bad and The Ugly

The Good…

• Employees get control over the distribution of some of the company’s profits.
• Employees may well be the best judge of who is working toward the common good and who is not.  Managers can be blinded by style over substance and continually reward the best political player – not the best player.  This has the potential to mitigate that.
• It gives smart management a peak under the covers so to speak – getting a glimpse of who is really driving company success and provides a bigger pool of potential high-performer to keep your eyes on.

The Bad…

• It’s compensation-based and therefore has the possibility (I’d say probability) of becoming an entitlement and requirement in the future.  Many employees may begin to expect this type of compensation.
• If the amounts are too rich (can’t tell from the article) behaviors can be skewed from working for the best of the company – to working for the best for Bob in Accounting.  Those activities may not be aligned.
• Because we’re talking “cash” here – I’d be a bit worried about collusion.  I know the article says it’s “anonymous”” – but really – what is anonymous today?

The Ugly

• It is tied to company profitability.  I understand it – but I don’t like it. 
• In my mind if a company believes that individual effort is important.  If they believe that recognition is a key way to highlight great employee work.  If the company really believes that recognition and reward is a way to drive superior performance and employee engagement – it SHOULD NOT be tied to profitability.

What, wait? Not Tied To Profitability?

Think about it this way…

Tying awards to profitability is kind of a chicken/egg thing right?  If I don’t have profits, I can’t recognize people, therefore I can’t get people engaged with the company, and therefore I don’t get profits.  Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

If you base this on profitability then you have to have done something else before being profitable to get to profitability and by definition – that “something else” worked and you wouldn’t need to do this.  Right?

Don’t get me wrong- I’m big on sharing success.  But I think any forward-thinking company that believes their employees are critical to their long-term success would invest in rewards and recognition regardless of profitability.  I’d cut free massages, free coffee and executive luxury car leases before I’d cut back on my recognition budget.

So Net-Net

• Do P2P programs.
• Don’t tie them to compensation.
• Do them regardless of profitability.

What do you think?  Is this better, worse or just an added nicety for employees?

Before you agree/disagree – think about this…

Fun Facts

Coming off the Golden Globe awards last night I started thinking about manager vs. peer recognition in a company and it reminded me of the way in which Oscar’s are awarded.  The Academy (read: managers) vote for what they think are the best.  But that isn’t always a reflection of what is popular with the movie-going (and paying) public (the employees.)  Many times it’s not even a close race between popular and Oscar worthy.

To-wit:  Top 10 lowest grossing Best Picture winners:

This tells me you need both.  I’d take out the cash though…

What are your thoughts?

Related articles

• YOU Are the Reason Your Recognition Program Failed (i2i-align.com)
• Motivation and Recognition “Lose Weight Trap” (i2i-align.com)

Here’s a thought – and it’s only a thought so don’t go nuts…

Do we need to recognize bad behaviors in our organizations? 

Bob Sutton – author of the Work Matters blog and the books, Good Boss, Bad Boss, The No Asshole Rule and one my favs… Hard Facts Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense wrote a post yesterday about a discussion he had with the CEO of YUM! Brands (Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut.)  In that discussion Sutton asks about bad behaviors and here’s a quote from the post…

“Second, when I asked him about bad behavior (as readers of this blog know, I have written quite a bit about how “bad is stronger than good“),  he had a great line, something like: ‘We are a company that believes in recognition, and that means recognizing both good and bad behavior.’“ 

That is an interesting idea.

Hall of Shame

How often are “bad behaviors” swept under the rug at an organization?  How many people “leave to pursue other options” when in fact they had expensed a night at a strip club, or hit on everyone female in the accounting department?  How often is screaming and yelling and belittling happening – but ignored?  Those are bad behaviors. 

Should you recognize them?

I know there are some little things like “legal issues” to consider – but in general – should you recognize bad behavior?  Should you have a “Hall of Shame” next to your “Hall of Fame?”

Not recognizing and ignoring bad behaviors is approval no?

Curious – should your next reward and recognition program not only have the normal “Kudos” cards but maybe a few “Cujo” cards so people can recognize when people do crappy things? 

Now that could be real fun.

Related articles

• Annual Incentives Programs Are Bad (i2i-align.com)
• How Evil Are You? (i2i-align.com)
• When To Use Recognition VS Incentives – Advice for 2012 (i2i-align.com)

Writing a post about goal setting would probably have made more sense before 2012 kicked off.  But then again, if I had read @EvaRykr’s post before 2012 I’d have better goals myself.

But it’s not too late.  You can still rewrite your goals using some of the great info from Eva’s post from January 2^nd .

Rather than have me paraphrase just about everything in her post, I’ll just point you to it here.  Read it.  No, I’m serious.  GO READ IT NOW!

Thank you.  Great stuff no?

Making It Apply in Your Incentive Program

Goals are like coins – they have sides… a good side and a better side.  To recap for Eva’s great post:

• Behavior versus Outcome Goals: focusing on what you can solely control (your behavior) can prevent the frustration that occurs when, despite your best effort and intentions, events outside of your control serve as a roadblock.
• Approach versus Avoidance Goals: using positive phrasing and focusing on what you do want can have dramatically different results than focusing on what you don’t want.
• Concrete versus Abstract Goals: stating your goals in very specific language and quantifying them can provide more structure and motivation than being vague about it.

Eva states that in most (again, MOST) cases behavior, approach and concrete are the best goal attributes.  And I’d agree.  She suggests times when outcome, avoidance and abstract have their place.  However, in most incentive applications, the latter will do you more harm than good and it would best to stick with the behavior, approach and concrete – leave the others to the professionals. 

Incentive Program Goals

So, what do objectives look like when done correctly in a sales and employee incentive programs?  Check the chart below.  I took what I’ve seen as typical program objectives and reworded them in light of Eva’s recommendations.

ROI is How You Measure the Program – Not How You Structure It

Take a look at the objectives in your incentive and reward programs.  Are the written to look more like column 2 than column 3?  Probably.  Most likely because someone told you that you needed to measure ROI and therefore, you must track and reward the things that go into the ROI equation.  No sense running the program unless it eventually drives some sort of return, right? 

The problem is that in order to make it easy to calculate the ROI, planners design the program around the result metric – not the people metric.  In other words, most people figure that if they want the program to increase sales, they should measure and reward sales.  But that rarely results in behavior-based goals.  They may be concrete and they may be approach – but in this case 2 out of three is bad.

It might be a bit harder to write out the ROI equation – but remember – your REAL goal is to change behavior long-term.  Not JUST show an ROI. 

You can show an ROI by threatening to fire everyone too… but you wouldn’t use a Glenngarry Glenn Ross approach would you?  I hope not.  (Email and RSS subscribers may need to click through to see video below – LANGUAGE WARNING!!! NSFW without headphones – really NSFW – I warned you.)

 Take the time and work hard to make most of your incentive program objectives behavior-based, approach and concrete.  You’ll be better for it in the long run.

Related articles

• Has The Incentive/Reward Industry Achieved Commodity Status? (i2i-align.com)
• Annual Incentives Programs Are Bad (i2i-align.com)
• How Much Ambiguity Is In Your Incentive Program? (i2i-align.com)
• Assumptions Suck – Top 10 Incentive Assumptions (i2i-align.com)

Changing behavior is tough. 

As the New Year kicks off many of us have set goals and objectives for 2012 and are working hard to make them realities.  Chances are we set up incentives for ourselves… save $100 and then treat yourself to a $20 gift.  Or go to the gym 5 days in a row and have a small sundae from McDonolds.  We do these things to give us a reason to change our behaviors.  But it’s still tough.

One of the least obvious and possibly the most important reason changing behavior is tough is because we don’t really understand just how much our environment – and the routines we impose on them – influence our choices.  We think behaviors are in our heads.  We think our behaviors are decisions we make and therefore we can control them.  We believe behavior is all about will power and choosing to do something different.  Not always.

In fact, many times we aren’t really making decisions about our behavior – we’re often blindly following the cues our environment gives us based on our historical experience.  Think about that for second.  In many cases we’re really not “making decisions on our behaviors” – which is where incentives focus – we’re simply following a script we wrote a long time ago.  We are not really thinking and deciding – and when we aren’t thinking – incentives are useless.

Examine your day from the time you get up.  Most of us go through a very pat process of getting ready to go to work.  Coffee, shower, shave, etc.  Then hit the highway, first stopping at Starbucks for that 1,000 calorie “coffee flavored milkshake” that holds up the line for the rest of us who only want real coffee (hint, hint – go inside to order that, please!)

But what if you took a different route to work?  Would you still get the Starbucks?  Probably not.  Interrupting the routine – changing your environmental cues – will change your behavior.

It’s What You DO

Routines, and the environmental cues that reinforce them, are key to helping change behaviors.  You’d be surprised how potent they can be.  Would you eat stale popcorn?  Some of you would.  Check this little tid-bit from the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss…

We go to the movies and automatically purchase a giant drum of buttery popcorn – and once the habit is formed, we’ll eat the popcorn even if it tastes bad, Wood has found.
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In a study she coauthored that was published in 2011 in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, moviegoers were given fresh or stale popcorn to snack on while watching trailers.
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People who were avid popcorn-eaters ate the same amount of stale popcorn as fresh: They evidently were snacking mindlessly. In contrast, those who didn’t have a movie-popcorn habit ate less stale popcorn than fresh.
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“Once these habits become cued by the environment,” Wood says, “they tend to continue whether people are enjoying them or not.”
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Wood suggests devising new activities to link to our environmental cues.
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Switch Performance by Switching the Environment

Changing the environment not only applies to your personal lives but to your professional work as well. If you want to get greater performance out of your staff think of ways the environment may affect how well they perform.

• If you want to increase the number of ideas in a brainstorming – do the brainstorming in an environment that is comfortable for your employees.  Don’t do it in your office – that’s your “power space” and employees may be intimidated.  Do it in their space – where you’re the stranger (hopefully not) and where they are comfortable.
• Move out from behind your desk when discussing performance issues.  Don’t set it up like a judge/defendant – make it a discussion not an inquisition.
• Enter the building from a different entrance if you can.  I’ll bet you run into different people and different ideas.  Urge your staff to do the same.
• Sit at different places in the company cafeteria to generate new conversations and connections.  Eat at different times to see different people.
• Hold meetings in non-meeting venues to increase creativity.  Holding a meeting in an artist’s studio changes the conversation.
• Is there any wonder that some of the most innovative companies have the least restrictive dress codes?  Yeah – that tie is stopping you from thinking weird and different.  It really is.
• Have a disconnect between departments – move their desks together.  Studies show we have a harder time NOT working with people we sit closer to.  “Automajically” we become co-workers, not “Bob in Accounting.”  You’d be surprised how much the process can change when you have to sit next to the person that actually uses your work output as their work input.

Don’t Think It’s A Motivation Issue

I’ve said this more times than I care to count… don’t assume it’s a motivation problem. 

Assume competency and desire first – assume there are other issues.  If our behavior is driven by the environment incentives will be less effective since much of what we are doing is driven by non-decisions – in other words – habits. 

Incentives are decision architectures and therefore only work if the person is actively making a choice between about their behavior and the incentive.  When the environment and the signals associated with it drive our behavior incentives are pretty much a waste of money.

Fix the environment first – then look to incentives.

Related articles

• When To Use Recognition VS Incentives – Advice for 2012 (i2i-align.com)
• How Much Ambiguity Is In Your Incentive Program? (i2i-align.com)
• Annual Incentives Programs Are Bad (i2i-align.com)
• Habits are incredibly powerful (psychologytoday.com)
• Health: Switch hands to break the junk food habit (summitcountyvoice.com)

A long intro to the main point…Align individual and team objectives to increase performance.

Now the introduction stuff…

I’ll start with a quote from a recent Freakonomics post on what motivates professional football players…

“Today’s question on “Football Freakonomics” is a tricky one. Which incentive is stronger for an NFL player: landing a big contract or winning the Super Bowl? 
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It can be devilishly hard to find out what truly motivates people to do what they do. There are a lot of reasons for this. Different people have different preferences; an incentive that works for a while may wear off over time; and it’s dangerous to rely on what people say about their motivation, since most of us are concerned about saying “the right thing.”

I love that quote  for highlighting the fact that what people say and what they do are usually two different things.  Take that to heart next time you ask your employees or your channel partners if they would rather have cash or some other reward (hint: cash wins on opinion – other stuff wins on long-term impact.)

The question they are really asking is whether cash is a better motivator than non-cash – the contract or the ring.

While I’ll argue their analysis is flawed from the onset since it doesn’t seem to take into account the length of the individual contract, the dollar value or if there were any long-term guarantees – or what kind of player turnover a team had after winning a Super Bowl – overall it is interesting to note that in both cases performance dropped after achieving the incentive.

Their Results

They analyzed all multi-million dollar contracts for NFL running backs since the 2000 season and found that in the year after signing big deals, running backs averaged .3 yards less per carry.

They then analyzed the performance of running backs, quarterbacks, and wide receivers on Super Bowl-winning teams. Again, there was a drop-in performance from the Super Bowl season to the following season: .41 yards per attempt for quarterbacks; .43 yards per target for receivers; and more than half a yard per carry for running backs.

The post offers a couple of reasons for these results…

The individual performance before the big contract was abnormal – meaning the player was performing at an usually high level before the contract (which led to the big contract) and then performed closer to their “normal level” (can you say regression to the mean?).  Or – they really did slack off after getting the contract.  In the case of the Super Bowl winners, the data suggests entire team was playing out their a** which led to the Super Bowl win in the first place.

Or…

Once the goal was achieved (either the money for the individual or the Super Bowl ring for the team) the incentive was achieved and there was no reason to continue to perform.

Unfortunately, because of all the variables that could be included in the performance equation, I don’t believe their analysis really proved anything – other than performance is variable regardless of the incentive.  Additionally, if incentives work – you would expect performance to be higher before earning the award and less after achieving it (which this seems to show regardless of award type.)

I would however suggest that the Super Bowl is something you can earn each year while a contract is typically something you earn once and then can reap the benefits of for many years (in football world many = 5 or so.)  Therefore, I’m actually a bit surprised that there wasn’t a bigger drop in individual performance after a big contract win.

The Real Story – My Needs and Your Needs

Their analysis aside – to me it brings up a more important point – the fact that each of us has individual goals and objectives that may be in conflict with what the company wants and needs.  They highlight that conflict in this quote:

“Consider the phenomenon of penalty kicks in soccer. Statistically, a kicker is most likely to succeed by kicking the ball down the center of the goal, since the keeper almost always jumps either left or right. So if a kicker truly wants his team to win, he’ll be more likely to choose the center. But that rarely happens. Why? Because if a kicker goes right or left and the keeper makes a great save, he can attribute his failure to the keeper’s great play. If he goes down the center and fails – well, he’ll be considered a fool for the rest of his days for even thinking about kicking the ball down the middle. So while we might think that he’s got the team’s incentive at the front of his mind, his private incentive – to not go down in history as a fool — is probably just a little bit stronger.”

The Real “Money” Quote

Ultimately it boils down to this fact… something I’ve been talking about for 6 years now – it’s not an either or discussion.  Whether it’s a choice between cash and non-cash, team or individual incentives, choosing one over the other is a bad strategy. 

It’s all about balance.  They sum up their post with this…

Truth be told, asking whether money or winning is a bigger motivation is almost a trick question, like asking what’s the better food – pizza or hamburgers.
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They’re both great! Getting paid and getting a ring are both profoundly strong incentives.

Keep that in mind when designing your incentive programs – each of us has individual needs/wants/desires that motivate us – and we have collective or common incentives we want to be a part of achieving.  If you can align those two things you get a much more powerful program.

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A favorite story I use in a ton of presentations is the Roger Bannister story.  It’s an oldie but a goodie. 

For those in Rio Linda, Roger Bannister was the first person to run a sub 4-minute mile.  The mythology goes that at the time he beat the record the prevailing wisdom was that no human could run faster than a 4 minute mile.  It was a barrier that couldn’t be overcome.  It was not humanly possible. 

The record of 4 minutes 1 second and 4 tenths had stood for 9 years.  It was impossible.

Until Roger Bannister did it.  3 minutes 59 seconds and 4 tenths.  A full 2 seconds faster than what was assumed to be the fastest any human could run.

The record that had stood for 9 years, and the expectations surrounding it, was eliminated. 

And within 50 days John Landy beat Bannister’s record with a time of 3 minutes 58 seconds.  And Landy’s record was beaten again in three years.  And that record was surpassed again a year later, and yet again five years later.  In other words, a record that stood for 9 years was broken 5 more times in the following 9 years.

The consultant spin on this story is that because conventional wisdom said it couldn’t be done – runners assumed it couldn’t be done and therefore didn’t do it.  Once someone broke the 4 minute barrier it was now no longer a barrier.  The fact that someone did it opened the door for others to do it.  It makes for a great story about barriers.

Knowing vs. Not Knowing

Steve Boese – fellow contributor on Fistful of Talent (new site design btw – check it out) and HR tech guy brought to my attention a scale called the Quantum scale.  It doesn’t tell you how much you weigh.  It keeps that bit of information secret.  It only tells you how much you’ve either gained or lost. 

Think about that for a minute.  It forces one to focus on the real goal – the weight loss/gain – not the total weight.  Being someone who is scale-averse I know that sometimes when you see the number – your first reaction is to sigh and grab a bagel (or 6) for comfort.  Your total weight becomes the issue. 

From a motivation point of view that is bad juju.  Just seeing your weight might induce self-doubt and ultimately sabotage your efforts. 

Why diet?  Why exercise?  I’ll never lose enough weight.  I’m 50 pounds away from my goal.  I can’t do it.

But what if all you saw was the relative change from your starting point?  What if you just saw those little reinforcers when you lost a few pounds… or subtle punishments when you saw the + sign in front of the number on the scale? 

How Old Would You Be if You Didn’t Know How Old You Are?

If you didn’t know how old you were would you act differently?  Would you dress differently?  Would you finally learn how to set up the router for your home internet connection?  Or do you say “I’m 60, I could never learn that.  That’s for the youngsters?”  (I’m not 60 btw… just so you know.)

Your own perceptions of barriers can be a problem for motivation. 

Take a sales person.  They may see others selling big number and earning big awards.  They may feel that because of their territory, their customer base, whatever – they could never hit those numbers.  No one with their territory had ever done it before.  Why bother.

What if you only told that sales person their relative number – not their absolute number?  What if they never saw other sales people’s total numbers – just their growth numbers (in some index way to hide real numbers)?  What if you removed any context except for the change like the scale does?  Would that sales person now try a little more?  Would they forget the weight of their perceived barriers and focus on change – not starting and ending points?  Would they break their own self-imposed barriers to success?

I’m pretty sure you could. 

BTW

The current record for the mile was set in 1999 with a time of 3:43:13.

Maybe that is the limit of human capability?  Or are we due for another Roger Bannister moment and I’ll have to update my presentation?

I put the video below in a post back in 2008 but I think it is appropriate for this post as well…(subscribers may need to click through to see video.)

What barriers can you remove in 2012?

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