Notes on Influencer by Kerry Patterson_11 potx

Suicideattempts dropped to zero.Without going into the complex psychology of suicideattempts versus suicide gestures and then missing the point ofthe example, suffice it to say that smal

paper can outweigh the powerful urge to use cocaine, but itmakes sense in terms of what we know about why people usedrugs.”

Obviously, vouchers alone wouldn’t be enough to keepcocaine addicts clean However, when used with subjects whoare already morally and socially invested in giving up cocaine,and when they’re combined with traditional methods, thosewho were given incentives benefited from the motivationalboost Of the patients who were given vouchers, 90 percent fin-ished the 12-week treatment program, whereas only 65 percent

of non-voucher subjects completed the program The term effects were similarly impressive

long-To show how small incentives can be powerful motivatorsfor almost anyone, take a look at your luggage If you’re likemillions of other travelers around the world, you’re sporting aplastic tag that touts your status in your favorite frequent-flierprogram It’s almost embarrassing to acknowledge the waythese programs have reshaped our behavior

For example, a friend of ours recently took a trip from SaltLake City to Singapore If you were to take out a globe anddraw a route from Salt Lake to Singapore, you’d pass throughplaces such as San Francisco and Hawaii But neither destina-tion appeared on our friend’s itinerary Instead he first flewtwo hours east to Minneapolis, Minnesota, before flying backwest to Anchorage, Alaska, and Seoul, Korea, on his way toSingapore

Our friend added hours to his flight because it maximizedhis frequent-flier miles This enormous inconvenience proba-bly earned him a whopping $30 worth of benefits But hewanted those miles He needed those miles In fact, flyers havebecome so obsessed with maximizing their miles that the dol-lar value of unused frequent-flier miles on the planet nowexceeds all the cash circulating in the U.S economy

If you’re still not convinced that small rewards can affectbehavior, consider the following example In a group home for

troubled teenage girls, administrators noted an alarming trend.Suicide attempts among residents had increased dramatically.After administrators tried everything from giving emotionalspeeches, to holding group sessions, to enlisting the help offriends and family—all to no avail—they came up with, of allthings, an incentive They came up with an incentive thatcould be invoked on the spot, that was immediately motivat-ing, and that was clearly tied to the desired behavior Thiswasn’t any old incentive, but one that on its face sounded crazy.Here was the incentive If a teenage resident attempted suicide,she would be denied TV privileges for the next week Suicideattempts dropped to zero.

Without going into the complex psychology of suicideattempts versus suicide gestures and then missing the point ofthe example, suffice it to say that small incentives that areimmediately linked to vital behaviors can yield amazing resultswith some of the world’s most difficult problems

If You’re Doing It Right, Less Is More

From the examples we’ve provided, it should be clear thatwhen it comes to offering extrinsic rewards, the rewardstypically don’t need to be very large—at least if you’ve laid thegroundwork with the previous sources of motivation No-body’s suggesting that corporate executives should ask em-ployees to come to work without any compensation or thatchildren should never get paid for helping out around thehouse However, when you do want to provide a supplemen-tal reward to help shape behavior, as the much malignedadage goes, it’s often the thought, not the gift, that counts.That’s because the thought behind an incentive often carriessymbolic significance and taps into a variety of social forces thatcarry a lot of weight, much more so than the face value of theincentive itself So, as you think of awards, don’t be afraid tolet the thought behind the award carry the burden for you

Consider the work of Muhammad Yunus, “banker to thepoor.” When Dr Yunus began to create a financial institution

to administer loans to the working poor of Bangladesh, he covered that some of the best young bank officers (who wereoften required to go door to door and meet with people living

dis-in the humblest of conditions) were former revolutionaries whohad once fought to overthrow the government Many put downtheir guns and picked up clipboards as they learned that theywere able to effect more change through administeringmicroloans than they could ever hope to achieve through vio-lent means

If you’ve ever visited any of the settings where these youngpeople have worked their magic, you can’t help but beimpressed with the nobility of their work Villagers who hadonce lived on the edge of starvation—whose children wereoften born with severe handicaps resulting from the arsenicfound in the unfiltered water, and who often died at a youngage—now run small businesses They also rear healthy childrenwho, for the first time in their family’s history, attend school Given the enormous intrinsic and social benefits associatedwith their jobs, what could possibly provide additional incen-tive to these erstwhile revolutionaries? Earning a gold star Anexecutive discovered this surprising fact almost by accident Toensure that local branches were focusing on the right goals, one

of the regional managers instituted a program where branches

of Dr Yunus’s bank earned different-colored stars for ing mission-central results—one color for hitting a certainnumber of loans, another for registering all the borrower’schildren in school, another for hitting profit goals, and so forth Soon it became the goal of every manager to become a five-star branch Individuals who were doing some of the mostsocially important work on the planet—and already workingdiligently and with focus—kicked their efforts to a new levelwhen faced with the opportunity of earning colored stars Ofcourse, there was nothing of tangible value in these ten-a-penny

achiev-stars, but symbolically and socially they provided more tive than anyone had ever imagined

incen-Once again, if you’ve done your work with both personaland social motives, symbolic awards take on enormous value

If you haven’t, extrinsic rewards can become a source ofridicule and cynicism Fortunately, in this case, bank em-ployees’ deep regard for Dr Yunus, along with their commit-ment to serving the poor, made gold stars more valuable thanmoney In fact, if Yunus had offered large cash rewards, it mighthave undercut the moral and social motivation that alreadydrove these employees every day

Hundreds of executives showed this same high-energyresponse to a symbolic incentive when a large consulting firm inthe United States decided to offer awards for completing trainingassignments The plan was simple Senior leaders would meetweekly in a world-acclaimed training program where they would

be given specific behavioral goals to ensure that they put theirlearnings into practice The leaders would then report back totheir trainer when they had fulfilled their commitment

Soon leaders were going to great lengths to not only plete their assignments, but, in the event that they were calledout of town, they’d e-mail their trainer to report on theirprogress Senior executives jumped through these administra-tive hoops because, competitive souls that they were, they allwanted to earn the top award—an inexpensive brass statuette

com-of a goose Once again, it wasn’t the cash value com-of the rewardthat mattered It was the symbolic message that motivatedbehavior It was the moral and social motivation that gave thetoken award supreme value

Mimi Silbert, as you would guess, is a veritable masterwhen it comes to making use of small rewards—one heapedupon another Delancey residents quickly learn that witheach new accomplishment they receive new privileges.Residents move from grunt work to increasingly complicatedand interesting jobs They move from a nine-person dorm, to

a five-person room, through several steps to the Brannon ing where they are awarded their own room Eventually theyarrive at Nirvana—an apartment of their own Ultimately,probably at the top of the value chain, residents are given

build-“WAM”—walk-around money—and the privilege to use it Finally, when it comes to demonstrating the power of smallrewards administered quickly and tied to vital behaviors, con-sider what happened at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center whenLeon Bender, a urologist from Los Angeles decided to pit a bestpractice he had observed on a cruise ship against one of thefinest hospitals in the world

Dr Bender had noticed that each time passengers returned

to the waiting cruise ship, someone squirted a shot of Purell

on their hands Crew members also distributed the disinfectant

to passengers as they stood in the buffet lines The good tor began to wonder if it was possible that the cruise ship staffwas more diligent with hand hygiene than the hospital staff hehad worked with for nearly four decades

doc-The problems associated with poor hand hygiene, Dr.Bender realized, weren’t restricted to remote islands or devel-oping-world shopping bazaars The acclaimed hospital heworked at (similar to all health-care institutions) constantlyfought the battle of hospital-transmitted diseases that are a prod-uct of poor hand hygiene A health-care professional picks upbugs from one patient and then passes them on to another Ithappens all the time Consequently, hospitals remain one ofthe most dangerous places in any community, causing tens ofthousands of deaths annually Find a way to get people to washtheir hands thoroughly between patients, and you’d go a longway toward eliminating hospital-transmitted diseases

When Dr Bender returned home, he started a hand-hygienecampaign He quickly learned that most doctors believed thatthey washed often and thoroughly enough One study evenfound that while 73 percent of doctors said they washed effec-tively, only 9 percent actually met the industry standard

According to Paul Silka, an emergency room physician atCedars-Sinai, doctors often believe, “Hey, I couldn’t be carryingthe bad bugs It’s the other hospital personnel.” Nobody believesthat he or she is part of the offending majority.

To help set the record straight as well as propel doctors towash effectively, administrators tried several techniques Firstthey deluged doctors with e-mails, posters, and faxes Thatdidn’t work It’s likely that most physicians continued to believethat the problem was someone else’s, not theirs In fact, noth-ing worked until administrators stumbled on a simple incen-tive scheme Staff members met doctors in the parking lot andhanded them a bottle of hand disinfectant Then Dr Silkaassigned a group of staff members to see if they could catchdoctors in the act of using the disinfectant (choosing a positiveover a negative approach)

Now here’s where incentives came into play When istrators “caught” physicians using the disinfectant, they gavethem a $10 Starbucks card That’s it They gave a $10 coupon tothe highest-paid professionals in the hospital as an enticement fornot passing on deadly diseases With this incentive alone, com-pliance in that particular facility moved from 65 to 80 percent

admin-Reward Vital Behaviors, Not Just Results

Earlier we learned that it’s best to take complex tasks and turnthem into small, achievable goals Now we’re adding anotherconcept Reward small improvements in behavior along theway Don’t wait until people achieve phenomenal results, butreward small improvements in behavior

As simple as this sounds, we’re bad at it, especially at work.When polled, employees reveal that their number-one com-plaint is that they aren’t recognized for their notable perfor-mances Apparently people hand out praise as if it were beingrationed, and usually only for outstanding work Make a smallimprovement, and it’s highly unlikely that anyone will say or

do anything Each year a new survey publishes the fact thatemployees would appreciate more praise, and each year weapparently do nothing different

This is odd in light of the fact that humans are actually quitegood at rewarding incremental achievement with their smallchildren A child makes a sound that approximates “mama,” andmembers of the immediate family screech in joy, call every sin-gle living relative with the breaking news, ask the kid to perform

on cue, and then celebrate each new pronouncement with thesame enthusiasm you expect they’d display had they trained anewborn to recite “If” by Rudyard Kipling

However, this ability to see and enthusiastically rewardsmall improvements wanes over time until one day it takes a callfrom the Nobel committee to raise an eyebrow Eventually kids

grow up and go to work where apparently the words good and job aren’t allowed to be used in combination, or so suggest em-

ployee surveys There seems to be a permanent divide betweenresearchers and scholars who heartily argue that performance

is best improved by rewarding incremental improvements, andthe rest of the world where people wait for a profound achieve-ment before working up any enthusiasm

Reward Right Results and Right Behaviors

Perhaps people are stingy with their praise because they fearthat rewarding incremental improvement in performancemeans rewarding mediocrity or worse

“So you’re telling me that every time a screwup finally doessomething everyone else is already doing, you’re supposed tohold some kind of celebration?”

Actually, no If employees’ current performance level isunacceptable and you can’t wait for them to come up tostandard, then either terminate them or move them to a taskthat they can complete On the other hand, if an individual

is excelling in some areas, while lagging in others—but

overall is up to snuff—then set performance goals in the ging areas, and don’t be afraid to reward small improvements.This means that you shouldn’t wait for big results but shouldreward improvement in vital behaviors along the way.

lag-For example, while working on a change project in a sive production facility in Texas, a member of the change steer-ing committee abruptly informed the leaders that the culturewas too negative Apparently he had read the surveys His exactwords were: “Do something right around here, and you neverhear about it But do something wrong, and it can haunt youfor your entire career.”

mas-With this in mind, the CEO asked all the leaders to keep

an eye open for a notable accomplishment—something theycould celebrate For about a week nothing happened Thenone of the assembly areas set a performance record The crewhad assembled more units in one day than ever before TheCEO immediately called for a celebration

While it seemed like a victory, the details the leadersuncovered as they researched this record revealed somethingquite different It turned out that in order to set a record in pro-duction, the afternoon shift had reduced quality standards onthe product They had also focused only on producing, and not

on replacing the stock they used up, which left the morningshift with a lot of extra work Finally, the workers had purposelyunderperformed the previous day in order to set themselves up

to hit record numbers on the day in question

In short, leaders were horrified to discover that they wereinadvertently rewarding behaviors that ultimately hurt the com-pany and morale They had rewarded results without giving anythought to the behaviors that drove them

Reward Vital Behaviors Alone

In addition to the fact that rewarding results can be unwise ifyou’re unable to observe people’s actions, it’s important to

remember that behavior is the one thing people have undertheir control Results often vary with changes in the market andother external variables Consequently, influence masters con-tinually observe and reward behaviors that support valuedprocesses.

For example, the book Kaizen, by Masaaki Imai,

high-lights the Japanese appreciation for the importance of ing effort and not outcome Imai tells the intriguing story of agroup of waitresses whose job it was to serve tea during lunch

reward-at one of Mreward-atsushita’s plants They noted threward-at the employees sreward-at

in predictable locations and drank a predictable amount of tea.Rather than put a full container at each place, they calculatedthe optimum amount of tea to be poured at each table, thusreducing tea-leaf consumption by half

How much did the suggestion save? Only a small sum Yetthe group was given the company’s presidential gold medal.Other suggestions saved more money (by an astronomicalamount), but the more modest proposal was given the highestrecognition because it captured what the judges thought was thebest implementation of Kaizen principles They rewarded theprocess, knowing that if you reward the actual steps people fol-low, eventually results take care of themselves

Watch for Divisive Incentives

People are so often out of touch with the message they’re ing that they inadvertently reward exactly the wrong behavior.Just watch coaches as they speak about the importance of team-work and then celebrate individual accomplishment Kidsquickly learn that it’s the score that counts, not the assist, and

send-it turns many of them into selfish prima donnas

Or consider the family whose son has a serious drug tion In their effort to express love and support, family mem-bers unintentionally enable his addiction With their wordsthey say, “You should really stop taking drugs.” But with theiractions they say, “As long as you’re taking them, we’ll give youfree rent, use of our cars, and bail whenever you need it.” They

addic-are, in fact, rewarding the very behavior they claim to want tochange.

For years U.S politicians have wrung their hands over thefact that Americans save so little money For a time they lookedjealously across the ocean at Japanese citizens, who save money

at many times the rate of Americans Some analysts speculatedthat there was just something different about Japanese charac-ter Perhaps they were more willing to sacrifice But thenagain, maybe the difference could be attributed in part to in-centives For example, in the United States interest earned onsavings is taxable For many years in Japan it wasn’t In theUnited States during that same time period, interest on con-sumer debt, like that from credit cards and home loans, was taxdeductible In Japan it wasn’t Maybe we were more alike than

we thought

Many organizations set up an entire reward system that, bydesign, motivates the wrong behavior Dr Steve Kerr first drewattention to this problem in his now classic piece, “On the Folly

of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B.” For example, some erans and scholars were concerned at a phenomenon that hadoccurred in previous wars, but increased significantly duringthe U.S war in Vietnam While still not the norm, U.S sol-diers in Vietnam were more likely to avoid conflict—even “frag-ging” their own officers to do so—than soldiers in previous warshad been And instead of going on search-and-destroy missions,

vet-as had their predecessors, many learned to “search and escape.”How could this happen?

Clearly soldiers in Vietnam labored under a set of flicted emotions that had no corollary in World War II It’s hard

con-to imagine how U.S soldiers in Vietnam functioned at all,knowing how hostile many of their fellow citizens were to theirmission And yet, according to Kerr, there was more going onthat influenced this behavior than a fuzzy mission and a hos-tile citizenry

Examine the reward structure Both generations of soldierswanted to go home That was a given Nobody liked puttinghis or her life at risk The typical GI from WWII knew that in