Today as I was flipping through my twitter feed I came across a gem of an article on the likelihood of incentive programs to backfire by Dan and Chip Heath. When you’re designing an incentive program one of your best sources of information is sitting right outside your office door. It reminded me of the old law of unintended consequences. As a manager when you act, things happen. Some of them are things you wanted – outcomes you anticipated. MORE
Logically, it follows that a sales force can align salespeople’s effort with company profitability goals by linking incentives to profit, rather than sales metrics. Sales incentive compensation plans can play a key role in aligning sales force effort with company strategies. MORE
Northhaft Liberate entrepreneurs from start-up killing tax and regulatory shackles Offer meaningful incentives to bring high-tech manufacturing back to America Why are so many middle-class communities being "hollowed out Great Again: Revitalizing America’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Henry R. Northhaft Harvard Business Press (2011) Why are so many middle-class communities being “hollowed out&# ? With David Kline’s assistance, Henry R. MORE
Incentives have been with us for a long time. As industrial age work transitioned to knowledge work, many began to question whether or not incentives would stay effective. Teresa Amabile summarized decades of research findings on incentives and creativity when she stated that extrinsic motivators like incentives could actually have detrimental effects on tasks requiring creativity, an argument later popularized by best-selling business author Daniel Pink. MORE
Steve Kerr uses a General Motors cautionary tale to show us that it isn’t enough to have incentives that appear to reward desired behavior. Kerr’s critical insight is that while GM could point to formal quality incentives, these incentives didn’t have the required impact on its managers’ behavior. Filed under: PMO Tagged: General Motors , Harvard Business Review , incentive schemes , Quality , Quality Assurance , Quality Management. MORE
In order to properly align its incentives to support its mission and objectives, a company must determine what managers and employees believe they are being encouraged to do and not do. Does GM’s reward system dispense incentives for cost controls even to the detriment of product safety? MORE
Incentives are a potent tool for shaping human behavior, but they’re famously tricky to get right. New research , published in Basic and Applied Social Psychology, has uncovered an alarming wrinkle that complicates incentives even more: they may make powerful people less ethical. MORE
One place to start might be a fresh look at the incentive compensation structure in the pharmaceutical industry. ” The opioid epidemic is an extreme example of how development and marketing incentives drove sales, but ultimately raised the risk of potential addiction, overdose and death. MORE
Motivation Rewards and Incentives Setting Goals Staff Development UncategorizedToday I was reminded again that different people have different reasons for doing (or not doing) good work. It’s an easy lesson to forget when you are busy and juggling multiple priorities. MORE
Add to that individual performance incentives, where a one-year term determines a large bonus while investing in risky long-term payoffs takes a back seat. Books Business Coaching Career Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Communication Failure Safety & Security Success Tips Work life Albert Einstein cultural change decision making emotion human beings job insecurity Leading limbic system performance incentives MORE
They took something they knew I liked, such as eating dessert, and used it as incentive for me to do something I didn’t: eating vegetables. Promising me a piece of apple pie next month if I eat Brussels sprouts today is not a strong incentive. MORE
Team Dynamics incentives Leadership Organizational Dynamics RewardsNot all forms of Rewards & Recognition (R&R) are created equal. In actuality, as human beings we aren’t profoundly motivated by the tangible reward or recognition itself. It’s about the meaning behind the reward. MORE
Offering employees equity stakes and other lucrative incentives to spur innovation raises their output of mediocre ideas but does nothing to stimulate real breakthroughs, which are stubbornly rare, say Oliver Baumann of the University of Southern Denmark and Nils Stieglitz of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management in Germany. Companies would do better to offer low-powered incentives for innovation, the researchers say. MORE
Thoughts on Charity, Foreign Aid and Market Incentives - Tanzania. Very honestly, these are all great incentives to come back to Tanzania and work. Or should everyone be a Mother Theresa, helping the neediest of the needy, with few rational incentives for oneself. MORE
Note: Although this article focuses on incentive stock in startups, the principles apply to any type of compensation. Stock has long been a top incentive for startups and private companies to motivate their employees. MORE
Many companies go to great lengths to provide workers with the tools, culture and environment to work productively, but workers still form habits that are killing their … Continue reading → Leadership focus incentives platform productivityHow leaders rise above the distractions The corporate world is full of distractions. MORE
In the five years since the advent of Dodd-Frank regulation, corporate governance groups, with their policies requiring at least half of long-term incentives to be “performance-based,” have pushed companies to replace options with multi-year, performance plans. MORE
Coaching Corner Emotionally Intelligent Leadership Leadership Lessons Learned Leading & Developing Other Leaders Practical Steps to Influence company culture gifts incentives leadership What’s the difference between being a good friend and a good employer? According the happiest companies in America last year, not much. Happy companies all have one thing in common: They give without expecting reciprocity. MORE
Should incentives be used to encourage fewer sick days? Reply by Prof Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe is a Chartered Organisational Psychologist, a Patron of Women in Management and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. You are not watching this post, click to start watching MORE
Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner William Morrow/An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (2014) How and why mastering the economic approach will produce better answers to questions and better solutions to problems In their latest book, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner cite […]. MORE
Laura Putnam is an author and CEO of Motion Infusion, a well-being training and consulting firm that provides creative solutions in the areas of engagement, behavior change, human performance, and building healthier, happier, and more innovative organizations. Laura is a frequent keynote speaker, provides training workshops nationally and internationally and has worked with Fortune 500… Read More Laura Putnam: An interview by Bob Morris. MORE
The Intersection of Blog and Life – More About Motivation → Pigeons, Superstitions and Effective Incentive Programs Posted on January 12, 2010 by Katy To get a degree in psychology, you have to spend a fair amount of time learning about pigeon behavior. Survive Your Promotion! MORE
Today as I was flipping through my twitter feed I came across a gem of an article on the likelihood of incentive programs to backfire by Dan and Chip Heath. When you’re designing an incentive program one of your best sources of information is sitting right outside your office door. It reminded me of the old law of unintended consequences. As a manager when you act, things happen. Some of them are things you wanted – outcomes you anticipated. MORE
Offering employees performance-based incentive pay is one common approach, and it usually takes one of two forms: bonuses are offered to individuals based on assessments of their performance, or bonuses are offered as organization-wide incentives, such as profit-related pay or share ownership. Sometimes, these incentives work in ways managers intended them to. But our results regarding work intensity and individual-based incentive pay should give managers pause. MORE
In this article (and the embedded presentation included below) Alfie Kohn explores how misuse of incentives, driven by a failure to understand the psychology of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation leads to failure: Cash Incentives Won’t Make Us Healthier. MORE
Unless your employees do mostly repetitive, mechanical jobs, you might want to skip the cash incentives. Incentives work for specific jobs. The results: When people were asked to perform repetitive, non-cognitive jobs, cash incentives improved performance. MORE
I especially liked the two below; communications about incentives are too often treated as a ”once and done” event: 3. Filed under: PMO Tagged: Communications , communications management , incentive schemes , Performance Management. PMO Communications communications management incentive schemes Performance ManagementThis post from @IncentIntel is timely as we head into silly season: performance and rewards time. MORE
Influence Leadership Learning coaching feedback incentives recognition This picture takes me instantly back to my kidhood. The homework or test is handed back to me from the teacher with a grade, and if you did well and got really lucky, it might have one of these stars on it. MORE
No buffalo was harmed in the making of the wild wings. Which presidential candidate is offering a $15 Buffalo Wild Wings gift card to get out the vote in New Hampshire MORE
I especially liked the two below; communications about incentives are too often treated as a ”once and done” event: 3. Filed under: PMO Tagged: Communications , communications management , incentive schemes , Performance Management. PMO Communications communications management incentive schemes Performance ManagementThis post from @IncentIntel is timely as we head into silly season: performance and rewards time. MORE
” That speaks to why they did this in the first place: To meet sales quotas and earn incentives. In these and many other similar (but often less high-profile) cases, much of the blame gets placed on the sales goals and incentives. Many companies have great success using incentives and stretch goals to motivate the sales force and drive revenue. We called it “Is Your Sales Force Addicted to Incentives?” MORE
Incentive programs continue to be one of the most debated topics in management. Sometimes incentive programs work well. You’ve implemented a new incentive program and results go down? The post Why Isn’t This Incentive Program Working? performance Recognition bonus employee motivation incentive programs incentives recognition SPIFFsSometimes they do not. Leadership can make a difference. Have you ever experienced any of these scenarios? MORE
In a recent study conducted in a California hospital, I found that that the type of incentive matters. Communication about the initiative made it very clear that this was a one-time incentive. In other words, while the specific goal and monetary incentive was new, as was the frequency of feedback, the information workers had access to about the effects of neglecting hand hygiene, and the way compliance was monitored, was not. What motivates people to change the way they work? MORE
Coaching Corner Emotionally Intelligent Leadership Leadership Lessons Learned Practical Steps to Influence Servant Leadership business Incentive leadership motivation “When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~ Dr. Robert Anthony So What’s Your Carrot? Do you know what motivates others at work? Research from Duke University and George Mason University reveals that, although you might think you do; you probably don’t. MORE
A recent teacher-incentive program aimed at boosting student performance in New York City had no effect at all, according to a study of 200 public schools by Roland G. Experiments in Kenya and India have shown positive effects of incentives, but the New York program, under which schools were eligible to distribute up to $3,000 per teacher, may have been so complex (due in part to union influence) that teachers couldn''t predict how their efforts would translate into rewards, Fryer says. MORE
Incentive: any factor (financial or non-financial) that enables or motivates a particular course of action, or counts as a reason for preferring one choice to the alternatives. The missing piece is incentives. In the past what incentives made change possible? MORE
Communication Recognition Relationships Results conditinal rewards incentives leadership recognition recongition rewards My husband and I approached the hotel for a wedding. MORE
Our first two books were animated by a relatively simple set of ideas: Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. If there is one mantra a Freak lives by, it is this: people respond to incentives People do “bad things” when there is an incentive to do so (e.g., “The The Cobra Effect” — The “Cobra” […]. Randy''s blog entries MORE
The concept is the same – in most businesses, salespeople cannot directly affect costs, yet their margin-based incentives and compensation are heavily tied to costs. Incentives on Volume. The Failing Second Sales Incentive Strategy Element. Other Sales Incentives to Consider. MORE
First up, I’d like to share the news of a new monthly column called “Real Leadership” which I’ll be co-writing with S Max Brown for Incentive magazine. They say that March comes in roaring like a lion and that certainly seems to be the case on my end as I have two exciting news items to share with my readers. Our first piece can be found in this month’s issue and it’s called “ Real Leadership: The Power of a Compliment ”. MORE
How many times have you seen an incentive system produce the exact opposite of the desired behavior? Here was the height of insanity — an incentive system that succeeded only in defeating its original purpose. Frustrated citizens, lost revenue and increased costs all thanks to the incentive system and the driver's desire to maximize his individual gain. But even the best designed incentive systems can only go so far. MORE
management systems executive pay incentives performance appraisal rewardsA recent Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation article on the finding that: 90 Cents of Every “Pay-for-Performance” Dollar are Paid for Luck. MORE
Incentives Related Topics RapidStart Leadership
DECEMBER 27, 2016
They took something they knew I liked, such as eating dessert, and used it as incentive for me to do something I didn’t: eating vegetables. Promising me a piece of apple pie next month if I eat Brussels sprouts today is not a strong incentive.
The Kini Group
JUNE 7, 2016
The concept is the same – in most businesses, salespeople cannot directly affect costs, yet their margin-based incentives and compensation are heavily tied to costs. Incentives on Volume. The Failing Second Sales Incentive Strategy Element. Other Sales Incentives to Consider.
Crossderry Blog
JANUARY 8, 2012
I especially liked the two below; communications about incentives are too often treated as a ”once and done” event: 3. Filed under: PMO Tagged: Communications , communications management , incentive schemes , Performance Management. PMO Communications communications management incentive schemes Performance ManagementThis post from @IncentIntel is timely as we head into silly season: performance and rewards time.
Mills Scofield
AUGUST 27, 2012
Thoughts on Charity, Foreign Aid and Market Incentives - Tanzania. Very honestly, these are all great incentives to come back to Tanzania and work. Or should everyone be a Mother Theresa, helping the neediest of the needy, with few rational incentives for oneself.
Deming Institute
AUGUST 17, 2015
In this article (and the embedded presentation included below) Alfie Kohn explores how misuse of incentives, driven by a failure to understand the psychology of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation leads to failure: Cash Incentives Won’t Make Us Healthier.
Execupundit
FEBRUARY 6, 2016
No buffalo was harmed in the making of the wild wings. Which presidential candidate is offering a $15 Buffalo Wild Wings gift card to get out the vote in New Hampshire
Managers are Heroes
MAY 15, 2012
Unless your employees do mostly repetitive, mechanical jobs, you might want to skip the cash incentives. Incentives work for specific jobs. The results: When people were asked to perform repetitive, non-cognitive jobs, cash incentives improved performance.
Lead Change Blog
MARCH 2, 2016
Team Dynamics incentives Leadership Organizational Dynamics RewardsNot all forms of Rewards & Recognition (R&R) are created equal. In actuality, as human beings we aren’t profoundly motivated by the tangible reward or recognition itself. It’s about the meaning behind the reward.
Let's Grow Leaders
JANUARY 18, 2013
Incentive programs continue to be one of the most debated topics in management. Sometimes incentive programs work well. You’ve implemented a new incentive program and results go down? The post Why Isn’t This Incentive Program Working? performance Recognition bonus employee motivation incentive programs incentives recognition SPIFFsSometimes they do not. Leadership can make a difference. Have you ever experienced any of these scenarios?
Crossderry Blog
JANUARY 8, 2012
I especially liked the two below; communications about incentives are too often treated as a ”once and done” event: 3. Filed under: PMO Tagged: Communications , communications management , incentive schemes , Performance Management. PMO Communications communications management incentive schemes Performance ManagementThis post from @IncentIntel is timely as we head into silly season: performance and rewards time.
Harvard Business Review
MARCH 9, 2016
Incentives are a potent tool for shaping human behavior, but they’re famously tricky to get right. New research , published in Basic and Applied Social Psychology, has uncovered an alarming wrinkle that complicates incentives even more: they may make powerful people less ethical.
Create Learning
OCTOBER 14, 2011
Incentive: any factor (financial or non-financial) that enables or motivates a particular course of action, or counts as a reason for preferring one choice to the alternatives. The missing piece is incentives. In the past what incentives made change possible?
LDRLB
AUGUST 13, 2012
Incentives have been with us for a long time. As industrial age work transitioned to knowledge work, many began to question whether or not incentives would stay effective. Teresa Amabile summarized decades of research findings on incentives and creativity when she stated that extrinsic motivators like incentives could actually have detrimental effects on tasks requiring creativity, an argument later popularized by best-selling business author Daniel Pink.
Lead on Purpose
APRIL 25, 2016
Many companies go to great lengths to provide workers with the tools, culture and environment to work productively, but workers still form habits that are killing their … Continue reading → Leadership focus incentives platform productivityHow leaders rise above the distractions The corporate world is full of distractions.
Harvard Business Review
JUNE 10, 2015
Logically, it follows that a sales force can align salespeople’s effort with company profitability goals by linking incentives to profit, rather than sales metrics. Sales incentive compensation plans can play a key role in aligning sales force effort with company strategies.
Harvard Business Review
MAY 6, 2016
In the five years since the advent of Dodd-Frank regulation, corporate governance groups, with their policies requiring at least half of long-term incentives to be “performance-based,” have pushed companies to replace options with multi-year, performance plans.
First Friday Book Synopsis
SEPTEMBER 23, 2014
Our first two books were animated by a relatively simple set of ideas: Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. If there is one mantra a Freak lives by, it is this: people respond to incentives People do “bad things” when there is an incentive to do so (e.g., “The The Cobra Effect” — The “Cobra” […]. Randy''s blog entries
Harvard Business Review
FEBRUARY 21, 2013
How many times have you seen an incentive system produce the exact opposite of the desired behavior? Here was the height of insanity — an incentive system that succeeded only in defeating its original purpose. Frustrated citizens, lost revenue and increased costs all thanks to the incentive system and the driver's desire to maximize his individual gain. But even the best designed incentive systems can only go so far.
Linked 2 Leadership
NOVEMBER 17, 2014
Coaching Corner Emotionally Intelligent Leadership Leadership Lessons Learned Leading & Developing Other Leaders Practical Steps to Influence company culture gifts incentives leadership What’s the difference between being a good friend and a good employer? According the happiest companies in America last year, not much. Happy companies all have one thing in common: They give without expecting reciprocity.
Linked 2 Leadership
APRIL 15, 2013
Coaching Corner Emotionally Intelligent Leadership Leadership Lessons Learned Practical Steps to Influence Servant Leadership business Incentive leadership motivation “When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~ Dr. Robert Anthony So What’s Your Carrot? Do you know what motivates others at work? Research from Duke University and George Mason University reveals that, although you might think you do; you probably don’t.
Harvard Business Review
MARCH 23, 2017
In a recent study conducted in a California hospital, I found that that the type of incentive matters. Communication about the initiative made it very clear that this was a one-time incentive. In other words, while the specific goal and monetary incentive was new, as was the frequency of feedback, the information workers had access to about the effects of neglecting hand hygiene, and the way compliance was monitored, was not. What motivates people to change the way they work?
Harvard Business Review
MARCH 15, 2017
Offering employees performance-based incentive pay is one common approach, and it usually takes one of two forms: bonuses are offered to individuals based on assessments of their performance, or bonuses are offered as organization-wide incentives, such as profit-related pay or share ownership. Sometimes, these incentives work in ways managers intended them to. But our results regarding work intensity and individual-based incentive pay should give managers pause.
Harvard Business Review
JUNE 13, 2016
One place to start might be a fresh look at the incentive compensation structure in the pharmaceutical industry. ” The opioid epidemic is an extreme example of how development and marketing incentives drove sales, but ultimately raised the risk of potential addiction, overdose and death.
Kevin Eikenberry
MAY 19, 2014
Influence Leadership Learning coaching feedback incentives recognition This picture takes me instantly back to my kidhood. The homework or test is handed back to me from the teacher with a grade, and if you did well and got really lucky, it might have one of these stars on it.
Harvard Business Review
AUGUST 27, 2014
In order to properly align its incentives to support its mission and objectives, a company must determine what managers and employees believe they are being encouraged to do and not do. Does GM’s reward system dispense incentives for cost controls even to the detriment of product safety?
Chartered Management Institute
AUGUST 9, 2011
Should incentives be used to encourage fewer sick days? Reply by Prof Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe is a Chartered Organisational Psychologist, a Patron of Women in Management and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. You are not watching this post, click to start watching
Harvard Business Review
SEPTEMBER 20, 2016
” That speaks to why they did this in the first place: To meet sales quotas and earn incentives. In these and many other similar (but often less high-profile) cases, much of the blame gets placed on the sales goals and incentives. Many companies have great success using incentives and stretch goals to motivate the sales force and drive revenue. We called it “Is Your Sales Force Addicted to Incentives?”
Let's Grow Leaders
AUGUST 27, 2013
Communication Recognition Relationships Results conditinal rewards incentives leadership recognition recongition rewards My husband and I approached the hotel for a wedding.
Coaching Tip
MAY 25, 2016
Add to that individual performance incentives, where a one-year term determines a large bonus while investing in risky long-term payoffs takes a back seat. Books Business Coaching Career Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Communication Failure Safety & Security Success Tips Work life Albert Einstein cultural change decision making emotion human beings job insecurity Leading limbic system performance incentives
Harvard Business Review
FEBRUARY 24, 2014
Offering employees equity stakes and other lucrative incentives to spur innovation raises their output of mediocre ideas but does nothing to stimulate real breakthroughs, which are stubbornly rare, say Oliver Baumann of the University of Southern Denmark and Nils Stieglitz of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management in Germany. Companies would do better to offer low-powered incentives for innovation, the researchers say.
Tanveer Naseer
MARCH 9, 2011
First up, I’d like to share the news of a new monthly column called “Real Leadership” which I’ll be co-writing with S Max Brown for Incentive magazine. They say that March comes in roaring like a lion and that certainly seems to be the case on my end as I have two exciting news items to share with my readers. Our first piece can be found in this month’s issue and it’s called “ Real Leadership: The Power of a Compliment ”.
Harvard Business Review
JUNE 18, 2013
A recent teacher-incentive program aimed at boosting student performance in New York City had no effect at all, according to a study of 200 public schools by Roland G. Experiments in Kenya and India have shown positive effects of incentives, but the New York program, under which schools were eligible to distribute up to $3,000 per teacher, may have been so complex (due in part to union influence) that teachers couldn''t predict how their efforts would translate into rewards, Fryer says.
First Friday Book Synopsis
DECEMBER 2, 2015
Laura Putnam is an author and CEO of Motion Infusion, a well-being training and consulting firm that provides creative solutions in the areas of engagement, behavior change, human performance, and building healthier, happier, and more innovative organizations. Laura is a frequent keynote speaker, provides training workshops nationally and internationally and has worked with Fortune 500… Read More Laura Putnam: An interview by Bob Morris.
First Friday Book Synopsis
JUNE 8, 2014
Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner William Morrow/An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (2014) How and why mastering the economic approach will produce better answers to questions and better solutions to problems In their latest book, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner cite […].
Survive Your Promotion
JANUARY 12, 2010
The Intersection of Blog and Life – More About Motivation → Pigeons, Superstitions and Effective Incentive Programs Posted on January 12, 2010 by Katy To get a degree in psychology, you have to spend a fair amount of time learning about pigeon behavior. Survive Your Promotion!
Deming Institute
OCTOBER 3, 2016
management systems executive pay incentives performance appraisal rewardsA recent Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation article on the finding that: 90 Cents of Every “Pay-for-Performance” Dollar are Paid for Luck.
Survive Your Promotion
MARCH 19, 2013
Today as I was flipping through my twitter feed I came across a gem of an article on the likelihood of incentive programs to backfire by Dan and Chip Heath. When you’re designing an incentive program one of your best sources of information is sitting right outside your office door. It reminded me of the old law of unintended consequences. As a manager when you act, things happen. Some of them are things you wanted – outcomes you anticipated.
First Friday Book Synopsis
AUGUST 17, 2011
Northhaft Liberate entrepreneurs from start-up killing tax and regulatory shackles Offer meaningful incentives to bring high-tech manufacturing back to America Why are so many middle-class communities being "hollowed out Great Again: Revitalizing America’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Henry R. Northhaft Harvard Business Press (2011) Why are so many middle-class communities being “hollowed out&# ? With David Kline’s assistance, Henry R.
Survive Your Promotion
NOVEMBER 18, 2011
Motivation Rewards and Incentives Setting Goals Staff Development UncategorizedToday I was reminded again that different people have different reasons for doing (or not doing) good work. It’s an easy lesson to forget when you are busy and juggling multiple priorities.
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