The Oldest Motivational Disease – “Awardmyopia Itswhatwesellitis”

Look at me.  Now look at your reward and recognition program.  Now back to me.  Now look back to your reward and recognition program.  Now back to me.  Sadly, your program isn’t what it could be.  Do you want a program that really works?  

Here’s how you can get the program you want – stop buying awards.

A Virus Hiding in Good Intentions

We have an epidemic in the motivation and reward industry and unfortunately it doesn’t infect those that spread the disease.  It only affects you - those that come in contact with it.  The disease is caused by companies who have a product to sell and will go to great lengths to create “bullet-proof” arguments that present their offering as the “best” award option.  It’s the best because that’s what they sell.

That disease is “awardmyopia itswhatwesellitis.”

That’s right.  You are the unwitting recipient of a deadly, often fatal and hard to eradicate disease rampant in those that seek to engage and influence behavior through the use of awards.  The disease ultimately tries to convince you that there is ONE award option that will cure your organizational ills.  The disease narrows your vision to a pinpoint of light focused on the award offering a specific vendor provides.

Symptoms and Progress of the Disease

It starts simply enough with your search on google for motivation or incentives.  It then progresses to research at various provider websites talking about rewards – gift cards, merchandise, travel, logo-identified mugs.  At these sites the disease attempts to soften the left side of your brain (logic and rational thinking) through sketchy research and sponsored studies proving the disease is beneficial – like bacteria in yogurt.  Once you’ve succumbed to the sites it then manifests with a meeting and a capabilities presentation that highlights services and previous infectees who are happy with their strain of the disease.  

At this point you are unaware that you now have the disease – but it is working feverously inside your brain.  The next step in the infection is where the real problems occur.  Because all the carriers of the disease have similar structures your brain looks to focus on the one place they differ – the award option. 

With the disease’s prodding - you begin reviewing and evaluating the award options each strain presents.  Your infected brain, now spends hours and hours in MSExcel comparing award pricing – working hard to find that pricing sweet spot that will be most receptive to the next infectee – your manager.  You now become the unwitting carrier of the disease, infecting your manager and they in turn infect their manager, until most if not all the staff believe that to solve the initial problem the best priced award option is the appropriate choice.

Unfortunately, this disease is crafty.  It dulls the critical thinking part of the brain – hiding the real truth and the real question…

“Do you need awards at all?”

The disease plays upon the fact that you started the discussion.  You’re the one that wanted an incentive and reward program.  You’re the one that wanted to look at awards.  

The disease just gave you what you asked for.  It was being helpful.  It was doing YOUR bidding.  

But in reality you wanted a program that drives behavior change.  You really wanted a program that gets employees to feel good about working at your company.  You just wanted a program that drives your channel to buy more and recommend you more often.  You wanted a program that gets results.  You wanted a program that works best for your company and your audience.

Unfortunately, what you end up getting is recommendations for specific award options that are best for the provider of that specific award option.

The disease changes the conversation from “how do I influence behavior to achieve ‘x’", to "who’s award is best?”

A Cure Is Out There…

I’m wearing a ribbon on my lapel shaped like a trophy to bring attention to this disease.  There is a cure but you need to do your part.  You need to step away from the awards.  You need to look at me – then look at your awards and then back to me.  

LISTEN carefully – YOU DON’T NEED TO LOOK AT AWARDS UNTIL AFTER YOU’VE DEFINED THE REAL PROBLEM.

All strains of the disease from gift cards to merchandise to cash – are effective in the right measure.  All these award options can influence behavior.  There is NO ONE RIGHT AWARD.  Read that again.

Prevention

Take time to inoculate yourself from this epidemic.  It’s simple but hard.  

Just ask…

• Is the problem an issue of motivation and engagement – or is it something else?
   
• What does my audience say is the reason objectives aren’t being met?
   
• How would I solve this problem if there was no such thing as incentive programs?
   
• Where did I put that number to I2I so I can get some unbiased advice on how to influence behavior?
   

Seriously though – don’t assume the award is the answer.  Don’t let the carriers of “awardmyopia itswhatwesellitis” craft your decision criteria.  

Be thoughtful.  

Be aware.  

Be careful.

Comments

[Nate]

Quite an interesting post. I can easily see the appeal of a rewards program, with managers trying to implement a solution without first determining the problem.

My organization doesn't currently utilize reward programs, and to my knowledge never has, but I'm glad to have read this so I can keep an eye out for this infection in the future.

[Casey O'Looney]

Very interesting blog post. In fifteen years, I have never worked for a company that provided incentive awards. Annual bonuses, yes, but not trips and trinkets. Simply stated, my experience has been that if you did not give 100% effort or bill to maximum productivity you were out of a job. With unemployment in my state at 14%, I hear more and more stories of employers cutting salaries, reducing perks and eliminating benefits. Those with jobs are thankful and are working their tails off. While I am sure that incentives and awards work for some, I would argue that the money is better spent on an internal and external public relations campaign. Make your company appear to be the best place on earth to work and applicants will be banging down your doors begging to work for you. Trinkets? No thanks. Bragging rights? YES!

[William Cunningham]

People who offer "solutions" to a problem that is defined by the solution itself are simply trying to sell a product whether or not it benefits you or your employees. Most awards are poor motivators, especially when they're in the form of a trophy or plaque that is otherwise meaningless to future income or employment. What needs to be focused on before motivation and awards is basic employee appreciation. You can't expect a product to replace a manager's expression of appreciation.

[[email protected]]

I agree, working the NOC shift I have the opportunity when on break to watch late night TV. Every commercial is covered in adds and infomercials wher you buy one thing and receive another free. The same goes for work, when working you can get awards and recognitions for doing your job or working hard which is only really just doing your job. What happened to the hard workers driving others to work hard or has the union entrawled its throngs into work which has bioled over to normal every day life. I.E. all the lazyness.
I wonder if awards are good for the consumer or the worker or the company. Sure its nice to receive free things but are they really free? Is there a way to increase productivity without trinkets as stated? I think so and that is firing the people who don't do the work, keeping those who do and fighting off unions. (PS I am a current union employee).

[Customer Loyalty Program]

I hope that most business people will be more circumspect in problem identification and selecting solutions, but maybe I'm wrong. Incentive rewards and formal reward programs are not a panacea, but they can be effective ways to get an audience engaged and to influence behavior. That said, they accomplish this only if they are well designed and executed (ex. - with reward structures tied to specific objectives, effective communication/promotion, a value proposition that resonates with participants, etc.).

Incentive and reward programs are also not band-aid fixes that can magically overcome fundamental business problems. Starting up an employee reward and recognition program will not suddenly lift sagging morale in a horrible place to work. So, heed the advice here - do your homework identifying your problem, don't just buy "what they are selling", and select a solution appropriate for your situation and capable of delivering the results that you need.

[Paul Hebert]

You may work at one of those rare companies where incentives are not needed. But - when and if they do show up - make sure someone asked the question - "is this a motivation problem or something else." Thanks for commenting.

[Paul Hebert]

Thanks for the comment Casey. One thing I might say instead of "appear to be the best place to work" - actually do it. I agree that bragging rights beat incentive catalogs every day!

[Paul Hebert]

William- no argument here. That is a critical foundational block in the "engagement" equation. Validating employees comes before any incentive can have an effect. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

[Paul Hebert]

Alexander - thanks for the comment. I think what you're seeing are badly designed programs. No recognition program should be designed to reward folks for "expected" results. No incentive should be designed to reward what you're already getting compensated for.

That said - having a program (or more accurately) a manager - who validates your work, thanks you for putting in the time and energy and holding top level work up as a the standard they look for isn't a bad thing is it?

[Paul Hebert]

Thanks "Customer Loyalty Program" (if that is your real name)- I agree "properly designed" programs have value. My point is to make sure you need the program before you even design it properly.

[William Cunningham]

I agree wholeheartedly. You first have to define the problem before you can offer a solution.

[Loren Weaver]

My name is Loren Weaver - I manage marketing for Loyaltyworks, an incentive/reward program services provider based in Atlanta. "Customer Loyalty Program" appears to have been used previously as a generic name in your comments section - it came up as the default.

I'm totally with you on the importance of proper problem identification. I was reacting to "The disease is caused by companies who have a product to sell and will go to great lengths to create “bullet-proof” arguments that present their offering as the “best” award option. It’s the best because that’s what they sell." and the sense that you were saying that business people might be convinced by industry marketing propaganda to lazily lob incentive-based solutions at problems better solved by other means.

While we (Loyaltyworks) don't promote incentive/reward solutions as a sure-fire cure-all, there is some truth to the fact that companies in this space will position whatever flavor of reward they offer as the "best/most-effective" motivator - incentive travel companies bang the drum for group trips, debit cart program vendors pimp the superiority of "branded cash", we laud the stickiness and versatility of Web-based point programs.

[Loren Weaver]

William, great point. What gets lost in the presentation of many trophies and plaques is that they are meant to symbolically and persistently represent what was really important in the moment - the expression of appreciation to the employee by the manager/organization. If that sentiment was genuine and gets communicated with sincerity, the object itself can carry with it meaning (at least for people who are sentimental). Training and encouraging (and perhaps rewarding) managers for doing a good job of expressing appreciation and delivering recognition is the key. I'm not a fan of plaques, but they may actually help some managers do a better job of delivering recognition (almost like a prop).

[Paul Hebert]

Just kidding Loren... I get a lot of spam comments from "companies" so I like to point that out if someone is trying to spam the comments. Thanks for clearing up the name issue and hope to see more comments from you in the future.

[working girl]

I tried to read this intelligently but got distracted by the Old Spice guy... I couldn't agree more that there's no single reward panacea, any more than there's a single personality type that singlehandedly drives company success.

[Ley Borlo]

Hey Paul, just saw this post because of your radio talk this evening, and have a question. Let's assume that you and company A have gone through all of the preliminary research, communications, measurement, objective setting, structure and design phase of the program and determined that in fact all involved believe that an incentive program is in order. At that point does the an award just fall out of the sky so it is obvious which one you should use. If not how do you go about determining what award best fits what you need to produce the mose effective program to produce results?

[Paul Hebert]

Well Ley - normally I'd charge a ton of money to tell you that but the short, cheap answer is... it depends...

On - employee demographics, amount you can spend, length of the program, type of behavior targeted, etc.

The big thing to is understanding the "choice" factor and making sure that the audience believes and actually has some choice in the award. The key is to get the most choice possible without overwhelming the participant with too much choice.

Obviously there are a variety of ways that can happen and that is another post and another 1,000 words.

But ultimately - the key is understand the audience and the value you have to spend.