Today is Ground Hog Day. Shadow or no shadow I'm predicting 6 more weeks. I'm sure I'm 100% accurate. But to celebrate Ground Hog Day 2011 I pay homage to the underrated and hilarious film "Ground Hog Day" starring Bill Murray. Like many classics it wasn't heralded as a blockbuster on release but has grown more popular over time. In fact, in 2009, the American literary theorist and legal scholar Stanley Fish named the film as among the ten best American films ever. So it has that going for it.
But on to my own personal Ground Hog Day post.
Below are posts from February 2nd 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 with a bit of an excerpt for each one. Enjoy!
BTW - as of 7:25 a.m. Phil says winter will be over soon.
February 2, 2007
Insert Channel or Employee Here
The article focuses on consumers in the retail environment but read the article and ask yourself - wouldn't the article still make sense if you substituted "employee" for customer or even substituted distributor, wholesaler, sales force, channel partner? The concept is the same. Don't design a program for the "average" or you get "average."
February 5, 2008 (ok - I cheated a bit here...)
Superstars Drive Performance Down
This research points out a few things:
- You cannot lean on one tool to drive performance
- You must understand the performance distribution of your audience in order to know what tools will work
- Tournament structures are designed for rewarding the few - for relative performance (think recognition) not rewarding changes in individual performance (incentives)
February 2, 2009
Survey Says 88% of HR Folks Think Their Reward Programs Need Help
- 88% of HR respondents believe their recognition programs need improvement and that their CEO would agree.
- 58% of HR leaders believe their CEO would say their recognition programs reinforce the strategy, values and appropriate behaviors of the organization, BUT... 42% say their programs offer no strategic benefit to their organizations
- 45% feel their programs fall short in driving bottom-line results.
- 42% are not measuring their program’s results in any way, leaving CEOs in the dark on the effectiveness and true value of their recognition programs and effectively wasting the money invested.
February 2, 2010
Motivation is a Game of Inches
Unfortunately, big and flashy are low probability plays. But our desire to be featured on the highlight reel influences how we design incentive programs. Too often we take this "go big or go home" attitude and apply it to our reward programs. We offer huge awards for huge returns. We promote the big payoff for big results.
What we're really doing is creating a hot mess of failure and bad behaviors. With little probability of success.
Hope you enjoy your Ground Hog Day!
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