Keeping others accountable: The carrot or the stick?

Posted: January 15, 2014 | Categories: Leadership, Team Building

We live in a world of increasing complexity.  And part of that complexity involves doing more, better, faster with less.  When we move in this direction, it is easier for some tasks and duties to get overlooked.

Earlier this week, I was working with a management team that was disappointed in their staff.  The staff members had agreed to entering specific data regularly, and it wasn’t getting done. There had been many conversations with the group members both individually and as a team.  In spite of all these efforts, the data was not being entered consistently.

To bring the situation under control, one management member suggested that we penalize any team member who fails to comply.  When he said that, my thoughts immediately went back to when my sons were toddlers.  My wife and I were trying to bring some of their behavior in alignment.  We came up with what we thought was a clever idea:  We took an egg carton and made twelve round paper tabs – each about the size of a penny.  On these tabs, we wrote down specific behavior that we wanted under control – like picking up their room.  Next, we put pennies over each of the twelve tabs.  We then informed the boys that each time they fell short of one of those specific behaviors, we would remove one of their pennies.

It wasn’t long before my older son, Kevin, rushed up to me and handed me two pennies.  He said, “Here…I am going to hit David”.  While I appreciate him paying his debts ahead of time, it was clear to see that this was not working.

I decided to stay with the egg carton idea, but turn things around.  Instead of starting out with the pennies, I started out with none.  Things immediately began to change.  There was a big push to get all the pennies for the day.  My new method worked.

Back to our team dilemma:  The best method of motivation that I have observed is when there is incentive.  We have all seen those signs in manufacturing plants that say, “145 days without an accident.”  You can bet that when they get to a certain number, there is some sort of reward, if not just a pizza party.

When there is a team goal with incentive, a different sort of dynamics kicks in.  Instead of pleasing the boss, the group is motivated by being a strong contributor on their team.  They want to go for all the pennies!