Incentives and Recognition – The Dead Man Test

Many of you know I was up in Chi-town presenting and participating in the 2nd HRevolution conference.  Being cheap – and wanting to stop in and check in on dear ol’ Mom on Mother’s Day - I decided to drive. 

Something about windshield time that clears your head (or fills it as the case may be.)

While driving and bouncing from the MP3 player and the radio I tuned into Rush Limbaugh.  

Understand dear readers – I only listen for the pictures.  Seriously, I see him as entertainment only – not my social or political sensei.  But I had to laugh and scribble a note to post on this little piece of… what should I call it… crap I guess.

From the Washington Examiner May 7 edition:

“A proposal to grant medals for ‘courageous restraint’ to troops in Afghanistan who avoid deadly force at a risk to themselves has generated concern among U.S. soldiers and experts who worry it could embolden enemy fighters and confuse friendly forces.”

Yeah – you read that right.  A medal for doing… nothing.

This brought to mind an old incentive and reward saw…

If a dead man could do it, it isn’t worthy of rewarding.

Think of it this way.  Should you award someone for no dropped calls in a call center?  You could – but I could achieve that goal by simply never answering the phone.  No answer, no dropped calls.  As you would expect – a dead man could do it.

Don’t design programs where  a cadaver can be a top performer.  You’d be surprised how often these types of programs are conducted – especially in the recognition space.

Some other examples could include: No accidents, Zero defects, Zero typos.  Each of these objectives can be accomplished by simply doing nothing.

No accidents – don’t do anything.  Zero defects – don’t produce anything.  Zero typos – don’t write anything.

While other things may impact whether someone can actually do “nothing” the point is that a program is poorly designed if in fact – with no other constraints – a dead person would be in the top 10.  I know, I know – you’re saying – we already have dead weight in the organization earning awards (see how I feel about service anniversary awards.)  But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Think about it folks – does it make sense to reward someone if they simply don’t take a risk, don’t make the effort, don’t do their job?  

Don’t reward rigor mortis.

The final paragraph of the article referenced at the beginning of this post shows how these things can manifest… 

“…said another U.S. soldier. ‘There are troops that never leave Bagram or Kandahar airfield. ... Maybe if they left us all on base and never sent us out to confront the enemy, we could all be honored [for] valor.’”

See – pretty easy to earn an award.

Comments

[Hinda Incentives]

I like this post. A lot of places seem to be bent on not necessarily rewarding achievement but simply "not messing up." It's hard to mess something up when you don't do it. In the end, these places are rewarding complacency, not results.

[Paul Hebert]

Nothing kills your high performers than seeing "not screwing up" being the standard of good performance. However, many managers reward "status quo".

Thanks for stopping by...

[A]

This is a great point. It can be very demotivating to see rigor mortis awarded.