Behavior that is reinforced is behavior that is repeated.
Rewarded behavior is behavior that is repeated.
This simple, yet profound concept is at the root of more low productivity, broken relationships, negative staffing issues, and higher costs of doing business than any other management principle, as well as top-performing organizations that grow and prosper each year.
What does the concept mean: You get the behavior you reward, and what is its impact on your organization’s culture and overall performance?
Let me give you an example. You want an employee who is always late to be on time, but you don’t tell him about his being late because it’s only 10 minutes. So you want and expect the person to understand you; the policy is to arrive on time. But unfortunately, he doesn’t get the message that he didn’t talk about it and he keeps being late. By not addressing this issue, he is sending the message that being late is acceptable behavior. He also sends a message to other employees who are on time, but may want to be late from time to time, that being late is okay.
There are two ways to reward behavior directly and indirectly. The example above is rewarding behavior indirectly: doing nothing. Here is an example of directly rewarding behavior. Let’s say you want your salespeople to spend more time getting new business, but your sales compensation program rewards only sales volume and not new account activity. DA, and you wonder why you have a problem?
There are myriad ways managers reward behavior they don’t want and then are surprised when they get more.
What behaviors are you rewarding in your organization that you need to change? An easy way to determine what these behaviors are is to observe the behavior and then determine why that person is acting that way. If you don’t like the behavior, you need to change the reward system. I am not talking here only about financial rewards, but also social, physical, etc.
If you’re in a relationship and all you do is criticize the other person based on your standards, don’t be surprised if they stop communicating with you. If you criticize someone’s dress, attitudes, feelings, goals, or thoughts to death, don’t be surprised if they don’t want to be around you. You get the behavior you reward.
The first step in changing behavior is recognizing the behavior that you would like to change. The next thing is to evaluate the reward system that exists, either directly or indirectly, why they act that way. Then look at your own behavior and how you are contributing to the actions. This is not an easy task, but it will pay handsome dividends in productivity, improve morale, improve communication, and improve results.
