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.