You’ve heard it before: if you want to increase a specific behavior, reward it.
This principle of human behavior actually has its roots in good old doggy behavior, demonstrated by the scientist Ivan Pavlov. Professor Pavlov’s dogs began salivating upon the stimulus that, experience told them, led to delivery of their food.
Behavioral scientists have discovered that people, too, repeat behavior that is rewarded. Rewards work best if they are immediate. Surprisingly, rewards that are random work even better than those that happen every single time – it appears that we’ll keep trying with a randomly rewarded behavior, not knowing which time it will actually yield the results we want (lottery tickets, anyone?).
Good news for managers: rewards don’t need to be big or expensive. In fact, some of the best rewards are those that relate to our social standing. Reward someone by calling him to the front of an entire staff gathering and giving him a clear, verbal “atta-boy” and he’s likely to remember it much longer than a $10 gift card given to him in passing, with no one looking on.
What behavior makes your team stronger? Perhaps you’ve chosen to focus on improving customer service this year. What specific behaviors are you looking for? Are you modeling those behaviors within view of your team? Are you looking – hard – for people who repeat those behaviors, and then rewarding them?
Be careful, too, about too much time in team meetings spent on what NOT to do. Focus instead of what team members SHOULD do – let good behaviors gradually reduce or eliminate undesired behaviors.
Rewards? Public praise and attention, a genuine pat on the back, a meaningful gift card. These will go farther to increasing the behaviors you want than employee of the month programs ever dreamed of achieving.
Behavior that is reinforced is behavior that is repeated.
Behavior that is rewarded is behavior that is repeated.
It really is that simple.
Looking for a quick, affordable gift card solution? Order aQuire gift cards and give your team the gift of improving their skills and knowledge while you reinforce behaviors you want to see repeated!
It might be time...
11 years ago
2 comments:
Excellent post. One quibble -- public praise is sometimes a demotivator, depending on the recipient. Also, individual praise can be strongly shunned in some cultures (Germany, Japan) where team is paramount. Knowing the person you are recognizing and cultural preferences are not only critical, but also shows how well you care for that person.
I couldn't agree more, however, with your take on behavioral recognition. We advocate recognizing behaviors and actions that deliver results, not the result itself. In our view, strategic employee recognition specifically acknowledges actions and behaviors that align with company values and help to achieve those objectives, encouraging employees to repeat precisely those behaviors needed for the organization to succeed.
Much more on this topic is available on my blog: http://globoforce.blogspot.com
Thanks, Derek, for expanding this idea even further with the cultural perspective. Clearly any motivational tool we use as managers must fit the values of the individual for it to be effective. I'm sure you've all heard of managers who come in with gift cards for a restaurant or store that is out of reach of employees. It sounds like a good reward but in fact may not be of any value to the person, especially if the gift card value won't purchase a full item.
Thanks for pointing us to another resource tool as well, Derek!
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