Influence employees the right way.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

There is a strong tendency for managers and supervisors to blame employees for employee performance problems. Certainly, employees may not have the knowledge, skills, motivation, or aptitude to perform effectively, but managers should consider the possibility that they themselves may be contributing substantially to employees' inadequate performance. The law of effect suggests that managers should examine their own behavior when questioning the causes of poor employee performance.

Managers seldom recognize the dramatic impact their actions have on subordinates. The same supervisors who admit they themselves are different under a new manager still minimize the impact they have on those below them. We are often more readily aware of the influence other people have on us than the influence we have on others.

Given the importance of supervisory behavior on subordinate performance, supervisors would do well to practice mirror management -- before blaming employees for inadequate performance they should first examine how their own behavior may have contributed to the problem.

Managers influence employees

Managers influence employee behavior in two ways: by what comes before the behavior (the antecedent) and by what comes after it (the consequence). Antecedents get us going and consequences keep us going.

An antecedent is a person, place, thing, event, or situation coming before a behavior that encourages one to perform that behavior. (Behavior in a general sense includes overt actions, thoughts, and feelings.) Some of the more common antecedents used in business are goals, objectives, priorities, accountabilities, policies and procedures, standards, meetings, and rules.

Antecedents are intended to communicate what is expected of individuals. Most supervisors attempt to manage performance by telling people what to do, often in many different ways. Employees are told, asked, and cajoled to work harder, smarter, and better. Supervisors send memos and emails, write policies, outline procedures, conduct meetings, and develop goals and action plans, as well as establish deadlines, targets, standards, quotas, and budgets. They conduct training programs and hold classes, give monologues and have dialogues, and sometimes impart words of wisdom in eloquent, inspiring speeches while delivering impassioned pleas for increased effectiveness and efficiency.

Increasing the quantity of change messages is ineffective; what is called for is qualitative change of behavior.

Telling people what to do, in its many and varied forms, is an antecedent, and antecedents merely set the stage for behavior to occur. Even though antecedents happen before behavior, they do not maintain behavior once it has begun. Hence, antecedents have limited control over what employees actually do. The role of an antecedent is to encourage a behavior to occur initially or, at best, a few times. Effective antecedents are necessary to initiate performance, but they are not sufficient to sustain performance.

While prompts may be useful in starting behavior, it is what comes after the action that maintains and supports performance. The second way of influencing employee performance -- and by far the more effective -- is through consequences that follow behavior and alter the probability of that behavior recurring. Employee behavior is a function of contingent consequences: People do as they do because of what happens to them when they do it. That is, consequences cause behavior to occur more or less often in the future.

Consequences include such things as sincere verbal praise for a job well done, a monetary bonus for outstanding performance, smiles and pats on the back for excellent work, feedback about performance, jelly beans, and gold stars. A reprimand for coming in late for work, a demotion for poor accomplishments, and taking back gold stars for disruptive behavior are also consequences. Even doing nothing is doing something! Ignoring behavior, both positive and negative, is probably the most common example of doing nothing. Managers change behavior by inaction as well as action. If nothing else, doing nothing gives tacit approval of negative or undesirable actions and minimizes the importance of appropriate ones.

Success in business is dependent on lasting, consistent performance. Yet, much management activity is heavily invested in antecedents. As the old saying goes, after all is said and done, more is usually said than done. By looking in a systematic way at all significant antecedents and consequences, particularly consequences associated with a given behavior or performance, we are often able to gain a useful perspective on why people do as they do and develop ways to help promote, encourage, and maintain change.

The law of effect

The law of effect, formulated nearly 90 years ago, provides the key to influencing behavior through consequences. The vast majority of behavioral and management researchers and practitioners generally accept the validity of this law. The law of effect states that any behavior followed by a pleasurable consequence will occur more frequently and behavior that is followed by an aversive consequence will occur less frequently.

A consequence is positive or negative only as interpreted by the receiver of that consequence. Supervisors must be willing to consider situations from the viewpoints of their employees. And each employee will tend to have a somewhat differing perspective on any given situation. Managers must be willing to walk in employees' shoes and see circumstances through others' eyes. Failure to grasp employees' perspectives results in an ongoing series of misinterpretations and misunderstandings, often followed by deterioration of the relationship and even poorer performance.

Take an example with which most people are familiar. You have probably witnessed a situation where a child was misbehaving on purpose, with the result that the child received some kind of reprimand or physical punishment. Afterwards, you or the other adults involved might have wondered why a child would appear to want to be punished. Meanwhile, the child may have walked away rubbing the spanked area, but thinking "They still care enough to notice what I do." Remember that a consequence is positive or negative only as perceived by the receiver. A child who doesn't routinely get any attention may see an admonishment as a positive consequence. Attention can be a powerful reinforcer even if it is chastisement.

According to the law of effect, managers can influence employee behaviors by controlling the consequences that follow those behaviors. Corollaries to the law of effect suggest that employee behavior that continually recurs in the presence of a manager is being reinforced and rewarded by that manager, and employee behavior punished or ignored by a supervisor will disappear. Pretty simple stuff, right? Unfortunately, many managers foul things up by punishing good performance, rewarding bad behavior, and ignoring both good and bad -- and even the ugly.

Common problems and solutions

What is needed is an increased emphasis on appropriate contingent consequences for suitable performance. The following four scenarios illustrate what happens when managers do not use appropriate consequences or use consequences incorrectly, causing them to lament that employees don't do as they are supposed to do. Note in these situations how frequently managers could have improved the situation by closely examining how their own behaviors may have contributed to employee performance problems. A look in the mirror would have been very helpful, indeed.

Scenario 1: Lack of positive consequences for performing. In this situation the performer does something appropriate and nothing happens. Eventually, the individual stops performing. The behavior of interest is said to "extinguish." Most managers feel that doing nothing does not affect performance. The fact is that when managers do nothing after successful employee performance, they change that performance by decreasing the probability of its recurrence. From the perspective of the law of effect, doing nothing after performance decreases the probability of that action happening again. Consequently, doing nothing does something. If an employee does something good -- exceeding a goal, for example -- and the supervisor does nothing, you can be sure that the employee's future performance is likely to decline.

Consider the following employee comments. From the performer's point of view, will the indicated behavior be likely to continue?

* "I worked late last night to finish a report, but when I gave it to my boss this morning, she didn't even look at it."

* "Six months ago I gave my supervisor a workable suggestion for improving the assembly process and saving money, but I haven't heard anything from him since."

* "Since my boss warned me about shortages, I make a special effort so my cash drawer balances each day, but my boss never notices."

* "You work your tail off around here and no one cares."

An absence of positive consequences or reinforcers appears to exist to the performer in each of these instances. But many managers feel getting a paycheck is sufficient reward.