Increase Punishment to Drive Individual, Team and Company Performance

To run a quality company with a strong culture we need more punishment in our work places.

I can hear the comments - "What?  You're all about incentives and rewards - why are you pushing punishment?"

While incentives and rewards are one of the things that we talk about here - what we really are about is influencing behavior.  And influencing behavior isn't always about dangling carrots.  Sometimes it's about the stick.  Traditionally, businesses have used reward programs to guide behavior toward specific goals.  But what do we do about behavior we don't want in the first place?  How do you "extinguish" a behavior?

That's where punishment comes in.  First of all - punishment is different than negative reinforcement.  Negative reinforcement is removing a negative state when a behavior is exhibited - versus providing a positive state when a behavior is exhibited.  The difference is in one case I get something (reward) in the other something is taken away (negative state.)

Punishment is not negative reinforcement.  Punishment is introducing a negative state when a behavior is exhibited.  And believe it or not - I think we have too little punishment in our workplace today.

Punishment for Individuals

The example I always use about punishment is when a child starts to run into a busy street without looking.  Most parents will grab the child roughly, either yell - or at least make their voice very stern - and admonish the child for the behavior.  In the good ole' days they might even swat them on the back end to really make the message hit home.  That's punishment.  You wouldn't let the child run into the road and hope they didn't get hit and then offer them candy if they never did it again.  In this extreme example punishment is the proper response.  The reason it's proper is because the behavior you're trying to extinguish violates a very important rule - don't get killed.

Your company has very important rules.  Don't cheat, steal, fight, etc.  Every company has rules that individuals must follow to stay employed.  When those rules are broken - punishment (firing, leave without pay, etc.) is administered.  Unfortunately, we seem to be loosening our standards on behavior that deserves punishment.  Many of you reading this can point to a boss or two who are a**holes and treat people poorly.  That should be a punishable offense.  But many times it gets a simple slap on the wrist or worse, is ignored.

Suggestion for better workplaces

Create a "10 Commandments" of your company and punish ANYONE who violates them.  No situational ethics here - if it's the VP of HR and they violate the code - whack!  The only way the workforce will understand that there are some lines you don't cross is to show them that punishment is the appropriate and immediate reaction to violations.

Punishment in Work Teams - It may be the right thing...

Work is more team-based and social today.  Most professionals - and I'd submit - non-professional positions rely on the ability to network with, work with, cooperate with  and collaborate with other people.  The meteoric rise of social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin - and the amount of conversation about them is testament to our fascination with connecting to others.  While we may think that is a purely social phenomenon it is infiltrating the work process at a similar rate.

From the web site PHYSorg.com:

"A paper by economists at The University of Nottingham entitled 'The Long-Run Benefits of Punishment' has shown that, in the long-term, using punishment as a means of coercing co-operation can prove to be a successful strategy."

Yep... in work groups that rely on cooperation, punishment is a good strategy.  In the study they focused on the "free-rider" phenomena that plagues teams resulting in a few people not pulling their weight on a project but getting the same basic credit for accomplishment by virtue of being on the team.

Key to using punishment in group situation however, is the team members belief about whether it is a short-term assignment versus a long-term assignment.  From the article:

"Differences in results from the short and long games also suggest that people behave differently, depending on whether they see themselves working in that group over the short term or the long term. While punishment was moderately harmful in the short games — where the experiment was carried out only 10 times — it was highly beneficial in the long games."

Where does all this lead...

From my point of view - sanctions and punishment are critical for establishing cultural norms for your company.  Some things are JUST NOT DONE around here.

Second, if you have teams of people working together for an extended period, setting up rules and norms for the team - and enforcing punishments - is good for performance. 

What say you all - does this ring true in your world?  Do you think punishment has any place in the busienss world?  Is it used enough or too much?  Let me know.

Comments

[Wally Bock]

Wow. Besides the fact that this is a great post, you also defined "negative reinforcement" both correctly and lucidly. I hereby award you a Bravo and two Kudos.

You can't be an effective boss or organization and only use the consequences on one side of the fence. Human beings are set up to need both.

If you want someone to try something or to keep doing something, praise and other positive consequences are your tools of choice. They're best delivered inconsistently.

If you want people to stop doing something, then pull the negative consequences, including punishment, out of your kit. Be careful, though, negative consequences need to be applied consistently.

[Eva]

I like this view. I think too often rules are written for minority who don't follow them anyway. There is no reason to over-regulate those who are doing a great job. Just 'punish' the ones who aren't doing their job well, treating people poorly, or behaving badly. The only thing is, the expectations and boundaries of what is acceptable vs. not have to be VERY CLEAR up front.

[Paul Hebert]

Thanks for the great comments. Truthfully, I expected to hear from the "you can't punish" crowd first. Good to know I'm not alone out here!

[Richard N. Landers]

Don't you worry that punishment sets up a work environment where you are treating employees like children? I can just imagine an HR rep walking up to someone's cubicle waving their finger saying "Bad worker!" What kinds of behaviors are severe enough that punishment would be warranted so as not to create this kind of environment?

If punishment is permitted for relatively mild misbehavior (say, for example, getting a little too into it and yelling at coworkers in a meeting), then punishment seems unnecessary. I imagine these sorts of behaviors happen during a momentary loss of control, not as a result of a long-term behavioral problem, in which case punishment does little except cause the employee to resent the person doing the punishing (or perhaps the organization as a whole).

If punishment is permitted only for severe misbehavior (say, for example, harassment), then punishment is too little - a targeted training seminar or assigning a mentor seems like it would be much more effective and long-lasting.

So when I read your suggestion for a "10 Commandments," I wondered what might be useful on such a list? Can you provide some examples of punishable behaviors that would fall in such a list and not fall in one of the traps above?

The only example I see above is that of a manager that treats others poorly. The problem with that is that 1) you're relying on Person A describing Person B's behavior (which is not always or even usually accurate) and 2) you're trying to punish for an inconsistent stimulus. Punishment only works at all when the stimulus is clearly defined, and the punishment is clearly tied to it. Is someone from HR going to be standing over this manager's shoulder watching for a punishable offense? If not, I doubt punishment would work.

[Paul Hebert]

Richard - thanks for your great comment.

First of all I don't think punishment sets up a work environment that treats people like children. I think it does the opposite. It creates specific consequences for actions that are undesirable. Adults understand limitations - children don't. To your point about "getting a little too into yelling at coworkers in a meeting" - is there any situation where yelling at a fellow adult coworker is acceptable behavior? I've worked in those environments and when yelling starts it is a sure sign you have a "parent/child" relationship already. Reinforcing the principle that we're all adults and yelling is not a good response again sets up a more adult workplace.

I do agree that in most cases the punishment is not nearly enough - a seminar for harassment - not good enough - especially in today's work environment where it is part of the onboarding process and really something everyone should understand.

On my list of 10 commandments - 1.No stealing 2.Harassment (sexual and other) 3.Cheating (taking responsibility for others' work 4. Publicly berating employees (this one theoretically could come under harassment.) 5.Drug abuse at work that results in or could result in the harm of a fellow employee 6.Any felony committed on company time

With some quick brainstorming I'm sure I could come up with others.

Your point about the "treats others poorly" is correct. However,I do believe that over time as other rules are enforced, the members of the community (the employees) will find ways to sanction that individual in way that eliminates them from the group.

[Paul Hebert]

Also Richard - how do I subscribe to you blog? There is no RSS for the professional blog?

[JR]

Paul,
I too like the punishment philosophy in theory but I tend to characterize it as pure consequences following actions. If you touch a hot stove you get burned - you don't really get punished. So if an employee continues to fail to call in when s/he is going to be late or miss work - the resulting action (suspension without pay maybe) is meerly the consequences for those actions not punishment. I agree that more of these established consequences of actions need to be enforced (both good and bad)

[Paul Hebert]

JR - I look at punishment as the act of applying consequences so I think we're in the same camp. Thanks for the comments!

[Paul Hebert]

BTW - I did get one comment from someone who used a rather graphic name that when said quickly (you know what I mean) and he made fun of my Ohio State hat. NO POST FOR YOU!

[George A Guajardo]

This is an interesting perspective. I seldom use punishment in real life, though I know it has a time and place. The problem with this approach is that it presents the user with a number of unique challenges. It is hard to do punishment correctly and it is very easy to do it wrong. I find that it takes more thought to change behavior through reinforcement, and that's usually the thing that is missing from bad management.

[Paul Hebert]

George I would suggest that not only is good reinforcement missing - but so is good "punishment" - both I believe are necessary for creating a performance culture.

[Richard N. Landers]

I suppose I consider the 6 behaviors that you listed (perhaps, other than publicly berating others) to be "common sense." Do you work with organizations or individual employees that really have these problems regularly? I suppose I just have a hard time believing that making a public statement of "you will be punished for these 6 work behaviors" does more good than harm. They are certainly negative behaviors - but is much gained by bringing them to the attention of all employees when really only a handful are causing the problems (who could be targeted individually)?

And thanks for catching the missing subscription button - my widget wasn't working! Should be fixed now.

[Paul Hebert]

I here what you're saying Richard. My concern is more that most companies have a list of "what we stand for" but they don't have a list of "what we won't stand for" and that provides the few bad apples the cover they need to operate. I can say that companies I have worked for and those I've worked with all have these issues. If we were more public about what we don't do - as public as what we do do - and created consequences - positive and negative - we'd all be better off.

Kris Dunn has post recently the flows into this...

http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2009/06/rules-of-engagement-at-successfactors.html

[Wally Bock]

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/06/24/62409-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx

Wally Bock

[Wally Bock]

I think we're too hung up on the definition of punishment and missing Paul's point which, as I understand it, is that using only positive consequences is not as effective as delivering both positive and negative consequences. In both cases the consequences can cover a range of severity. I think that's pretty straightforward. If you allow bad behavior (mild or severe) or poor performance to continue without consequences, then you condone it. When you do that nobody wins. Not the team member. Not the supervisor. Not the company.

[Paul Hebert]

Wally -once a marine always a marine - you got my back on that one - exactly my point. I don't know if it was the "enlighted" parenting that occurred in the 80s/90s that put "consequences" on the back burner and only positive reinforcement on the front but we've strayed from holding people accountable for minimum behaviors and hitting them for violations. As an example - let's see how far Gov. Sanford falls after his recent announcement. I'm guessing a book deal and spot on a talk show - now that's real punishment.

[Lui Sieh]

Hi,

I like this because it helps explain in better clarity what it means to set "rules of engagement". One definitely needs the carrot and the stick to effectively establish "cultural" norms and boundaries. Sometimes it's as blunt as imparting what "professionalism" means in the office.

I agree with you that bright lines need to be drawn ... and it's unfortunate because one would expect people to already know this.

Cheers,