Congratulations - It's a baby Chimera!

I picked up a book at a Barnes and Nobles in Oakland this week - something non-business to read on the plane back to South Carolina.  Normally it’s all business but since I’ve been on 24/7 for a while I thought I’d take a break.  I picked up Michael Crichton’s book “Next.”  A pure fiction book, written a couple year’s ago, it focuses on gene therapy and the use – or more accurately –the misuse of genetic material.   Early on in the book the concept of a Chimera was brought up. 

A Chimera is a mythical beast with parts from many different animals whose sighting foretold shipwrecks, storms and other natural disasters .  But in the DNA world - a Chimera is someone with two sets of DNA contained within one body.  The DNA of someone’s liver could be different than the DNA of their blood.  Sounds weird eh?  Theoretically, you could take a DNA test using cells from your cheek and it wouldn’t be a match for your children – ones you’re sure are yours.  Maury Povich would have a field day with a couple of Chimeras on his show.

But this idea of Chimera came on the heels of a discussion with a client about the difference between recognition programs and incentives programs.  You know I’ve posted before on this issue and how the words recognition and incentive get interchanged and confused.

Well it occurred to me that the Chimera is a perfect icon for the types of programs many companies put together in their quest to have a single program that “does it all.”  Programs that have the goal of an incentive such as an individual objective, but the rules of a recognition program like earning awards based on relative performance, the time frame of an incentive (shorter term) with the award being a recognition item.

In other words the program has elements of both – but the effectiveness of neither.  While on the surface it might seem that a Chimera has all the positive qualities of the menagerie in its DNA – I propose that the Chimera is weaker for its complexity.  When a program strives to achieve too much it achieves less.  Recognition and incentive pull on very different parts of the brain and combining them causes a real identity crisis within the program.

Incentive programs typically connect with the transactional side of your brain – the logical part.  Recognition hits the social side – the emotional side.  Putting these two halves together you short-circuit the response mechanism.  Participants don’t know how to feel about the program and the sponsor (that’d be you) – lose all the effective elements of each kind of program.

Look at your reward and recognition program?  Does it try to hard to be all things to all people?  Did it come about based on the input from a variety of people who may (or may not) understand the difference in objectives when considering recognition over incentive?  Did you use the words recognition program, incentive program, contest, or scheme interchangeably in the subject line of the emails that flew around during it’s gestation?

If so – Congratulations you just birthed a Chimera!

Let’s keep the DNA for each type of program separate.  Do you really need to create your own little Isle of Dr. Moreau?  Go right ahead - but I charge a lot to come in and rid your company of these little abominations.

(PS – Author’s note:  I’m feeling a bit giddy right now – not many people can weave a mythical multi-species animal into a post on rewards and incentives – pretty cool eh?)

Comments

[Julien Dionne]

Well done! A masterpiece!

[Dave Wisland]

Paul –

I enjoy your blog, but have to disagree with elements of your Chimera theory, and have found that your previous blog on 4/30 discounts this new theory as well.

There is a distinct difference between Recognition and Incentives and you have a good handle on it. However you formerly praised one of your reader’s response to your 4/30 blog (see below) where it was suggested that Recognition and Tangible Rewards work best together. They do. Complexity can certainly be an issue in the design of a performance improvement program, but the appropriate application of a recognition element will not confuse participants as you suggest unless they are improperly handled. Furthermore, current neurological studies (as alluded to in the example provided by the reader) disprove the overly simplistic “right brain / left brain” hypothesis. An incentive program without emotional involvement from recognition (stimulating both sides of the cortex) is unquestionably less effective.

Here’s a good read for you that will explain a lot: How The Mind Works – by Steven Pinker. In this book he states that one of the features of consciousness learned through functional imaging of brain activity is that “…thoughts come with emotional flavoring… which in turn trigger behavior selection…” He even makes reference to chimeras! A chimera is confusing, but the combination recognition and rewards does not have to result in a chimera and a thoughtful program design including both can make or break the success of an incentive program.

Another reference to the advantageous blending of rewards and recognition is in a report from the American Compensation Association report “People, Performance, and Pay.” The report states that “Recognition does have a role. Properly handled, it can be an effective awareness and role modeling element of a larger performance improvement effort such as gain sharing or other incentive-based plans.”

Another example of the emotional involvement in incentive programs is in an article on “trophy value” which I authored for Corporate & Incentive Travel Magazine and I would be glad to forward to your email address.

I am likely the most experienced designer of incentive program rules in the industry. I have provided consulting for many of the top incentive agencies and would be interested in working with your company as well. If you’re interested (or curious) I can send more information on my background or answer any questions you might have. Please let me know your thoughts on my response to your blog as well as the potential for providing assistance to your company.

Sincerely,

Dave
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Dave Wisland
Wisland Marketing, LLC
Sales Catalyst, LLC
Incentive Industry Consultant
Performance Improvement Strategist
321 Oakley Lane
St. Louis, MO 63122
(314) 965-8356 (w)
(314) 920-3486 (c)
dwisland@motivationwizard.com

What the article references is research conducted in Japan that showed through fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) that the same area of the brain that is stimulated when you receive cash (or a monetary reward) is activated when given praise. In addition, the same reward center responds when someone comments positively on your "social standing."
What this indicates, is that in a very base level in our brains, we get the same boost from our "reward" center in our brain for praise and increased social standing as we do when we get other types of "hard" rewards.
Now, I don't think this is the green-light to stop paying people and just start sending thank you notes instead of paychecks - but the implications for incentive and reward programs are varied.
Specifically, providing public standings of performance will "feel" like a tangible reward to people since it highlights their performance. Sending kudos, and other notifications of praise can supplement any program and stimulate the recipients reward center, making them feel the same as if you sent a token gift.
From the article:
The fact that the social reward is biologically coded suggests that "the need to belong ... is essential for humans," said Sadato, whose study appears in the journal Neuron.
So - think about paying your participants” pocketbooks with tangible rewards AND filling their biological pocketbook with praise.

[Paul Hebert]

Great comment Dave! It's nice to know someone is paying attention. However, I don't think we're too far apart on this. I think the disconnect arises out of the definitions we use when we discuss "recognition" and "incentive".

Where I was going in the post is that programs designed to provide a standard of performance against the "group" and limit the number of earners are typically referred to as "recognition" programs. Programs that reward me for incremental improvement in my own performance (regardless of the group) are typically labeled "incentive" programs. My point was that when the structures get combined without understanding the real design objectives they can be ineffective.

I would never suggest eliminating public recognition of effort and achievement, nor the tangible symbols of that achievement, from incentive programs. I was suggesting that there are distinct differences in the structure of these programs and that combining the two structures into one program can be problematic.

I believe that there are places for programs that reward a few based on relative achievement and programs that reward the many based on individual achievement. It's when these two structures combine that the problem arises.

I am 100% behind recognizing people and believe it to be one of the strongest ways companies can create emotional attachments between themselves and their audiences.

I think this discussion highlights the fact that there needs to be some standardization of lexicon so we can communicate better with clients as well as with ourselves.

Do we agree/disagree?