Today is a milestone. This is the 500th post on Incentive Intelligence.
39 months... 1187 total days... 837 working days... one post every 1.6 "working" day.
Average post length - 400 words =
Total words: 200,000.
I spent some time over the weekend going through every post on the blog. (As a side note for any bloggers reading this... it's humbling to see your early work versus your current work.) I wanted to pick few posts and give you all a "best of" compilation. However, it's difficult to narrow down your posts to a small number - kinda like asking someone to pick the child they love the most.
Below are links to 19 posts out of the 500. These aren't based on any measurable statistic like clicks, link backs, comments - just the fact that I liked them. I've put them in chronological order from the oldest to the newest and added a bit of the post as a teaser.
Based on the site's subscriber growth curve I know the first few posts got very few reads so they may be new to most of you.
I hope you enjoy - and feel free to leave a comment if you particularly like any one of my babies.
What hit me is that middle managers act as the transmission in an
organization. They are tasked with bridging the gap between strategy
(engine) and tactics (wheels.) I think that as our economy relies more on creativity,
relationships, managing tacit knowledge and managing less measurable
things, then the need for quality transmissions should be growing not
shrinking and the value of good middle managers should be increasing.
If we first focus on alignment we can get some work done. Trying to
get agreement first means we have to work very hard for a long while to
just get to a point where we can get moving on specific tasks. Getting
people to align their effort toward a goal (whether they agree or not)
is much easier.
The key is to start thinking more granular - all employees have similar
drivers as the survey shows, but they manifest themselves differently.
The last 10 years have been much more compressed. The internet,
blogs, proliferation of business books, email discussions, daily
conversations with potential clients about their business, online bid
responses, white paper submissions, more discussion on the phone,
conference calls with people in the UK, India, etc. My experience is
activity-based not time-based. Therefore, I've probably put an extra
10 years in - no wonder I get tired earlier.
But what this says to me is that I have to change my definition of experience. And I have to apply that to others.
They referenced some numbers I found interesting...
- Life expectancy of a graduating college student: 90 years+
- Expected work life starting at the age 20 = 60 years
- Half-life of a career due to obsolescence = 7 years (and decreasing)
- Number of educational “major model upgrades” over a career = 8
While the assumptions above were used to develop a cost associated
with keeping yourself up-to-date with respect to education it drove
home the idea that we may need to change our work focus at least 8
times in a career - and that number may be rising! In other words, the
"career" you think you have - isn't "a" career. It's multiple
careers. Each one requiring a different learning curve.
How does a company balance the loyalty issue if in fact the nexus of where I feel valued has moved away from the organization?
Here's my take.
As the leader of the organization the first thing you should do is
recognize the reality of the situation. Leaders must publicly admit
they understand that the nexus has shifted and encourage their
employees to be a member of a Tribe - find one that fits their values,
believes, desires.
What does an employee look like on a radar screen?
Let's create an employee radar.
What I'm referring to is a graphical representation of an employee
that provides a baseline for developing ongoing "interventions" to grow
and retain - or weed and eliminate - the appropriate employees for a
company. I use the word intervention in a positive way - not the
negative way normally associated with it.
Yesterday the goal was to maximize the "Work" bubble in order to
grow the other bubbles. The larger the "Work" bubble, the larger the
"Home" and "Play" bubble could grow. "Home" and "Play" were dependent
on "Work."
But today - "Work" is not a separate bubble. Work today is
incorporated into a much larger picture of who you are. Today's
employee looks like this...
Start with the premise that a new, inexperienced hire, is an unknown
quantity relating to talent. Add to that a shrinking employee pool
that believes the company won't be loyalty to them. This causes them
to try to maximize their short-term compensation - or look for a work
environment that is risky in hopes of getting noticed.
The company faced with higher costs for new hires, shifts their
focus internally to the investment they have already made, and in order
to keep those employees who are a known quantity, continues to increase
salary and perks. However, as the equation keeps getting more out of
whack (cost of new versus incremental cost of existing) the performance
internally can actually decrease - hence the "mediocrity" issue
mentioned in the abstract above.
Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses and started the Protestant Reformation.
Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger wrote The Cluetrain Manifesto and they had their 95 Theses.
I’m too lazy to think of 95 of anything so I offer the Incentive Manifesto – a 10% effort and therefore only 9.5 Theses. There are more, but I’m not willing to do the other 85.5 today.
Maybe I’ll build on it – or better yet – you can help by adding your comments. Hope to get to 95 some day.
What I thought about this weekend is that most companies would love
to have all their employees (or their distribution channel and
customers for that matter) focused on the best interests of the
company. However, that is a difficult task. People typically focus on
what they think is important. Especially, if we reward them in that manner.
But - if we connect with them at a different level - with different
rewards - we can build a way to connect to the "we" mentality.
At a lecture where a speaker was highlighting the benefits of rewards
over punishment for modifying the behavior of the instructors'
students, the flight instructors unanimously disagreed. They said
their experience was that if they praised a student for well-executed
maneuvers, the next time they did worse. But if they yelled and
screamed at them when they did poorly they almost always did better the
next time.
The authors bring up a great point about incentives - and why it takes
some skill to put them together. They hit on something called the
"focusing illusion." This occurs when you focus on one variable within
a larger context as THE variable - and the ONLY variable - that will
impact your results. When your incentives focus in one thing you are
sure to get results in that one area - to the detriment of all other
variables that have an affect on outcomes.
If your rewards supplier says you need rewards because of Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs then you’re dealing with someone who: a.) doesn’t
understand what Maslow proposed with his theory, b.) doesn’t care about
you, or your audience’s success, c.) is too lazy to look at your
specific business issues and wants to borrow credibility from a 60
year-old “theory” in order to make quick buck.
I read a quote a long time ago - I think it was from Peter Drucker -
that said something along the lines of "if you want to really
understand management, manage volunteers." I find that concept more
and more indicative of what today's managers must do in order to drive
performance within their organizations.
It never is one thing. Never has been. Never will be. The only way (yes I said ONLY)
way to drive performance within your employee base (or channel, or
consumer) is to look at your connection to the audience as a system of
elements that make up a whole.
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?
With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy of "You might be a redneck" fame, I
bring you my list of "You might want to talk to a different incentive
company if..."
Not in any order and not nearly as funny - but more than true.
I'm done with motivation. That's right - I've given up on trying to
help companies motivate their employees, channel partners or
consumers. I'm throwing in the towel. Why you ask (I hope you ask)?
Motivation
isn't something I can do for you. Motivation isn't something anyone
can do for any audience. And if it were possible - it would be
short-lived and ultimately damaging to your employer brand and your
brand in general. I cannot be responsible for programs and processes
that will ultimately hurt you.
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