Influence employees the right way.

Managers frequently fail to respond to positive worker action, even if it's exactly the behavior they want to see in the future. People who work the hardest and do the best are ignored because many times their supervisors are spending time and energy dealing with problem performers. All else being equal, over time, performance falls to a level just high enough to avoid punishment. The failure to reinforce productive actions is a common consequence in business, creating many performance problems.

Positive consequences should be delivered frequently for good performance. Specific examples of verbal reinforcers include:

* "I noticed you put in some extra time last night to complete this report on time. I really appreciate it."

* "Thank you for limiting your discussion to the agenda material in today's staff meeting like I asked. Your cooperation helped the meeting go much quicker."

* "You consistently put forth so much effort to make your work accurate, I thought you should have the first new computer in the department."

* "You work hard and succeed at meeting our deadlines, I would like to take you to lunch today."

Scenario 2: Rewards for not performing or for inappropriate behavior. Employees may not be doing expected work activities because failing to do so is rewarded. Many managers reinforce nonperformance or inappropriate behavior unconsciously on a regular basis, and they do so with the best of intentions.

Everyone has overheard a parent telling his child that if she stopped crying he would buy her an ice cream cone. If you think about it, what is being reinforced is stopping crying. To stop crying, the child must have started crying. The child comes to realize on some level that when she wants ice cream she should start crying. There is a subtlety in understanding the effects of consequences. The parent is not stupid for not realizing this; he has just not fully understood how his actions have influenced the child's behavior.

Consider business-oriented examples. Suppose an employee who does not like to work weekends becomes disruptive during weekend shifts, If the supervisor remedies the problem by taking the employee off weekend work, the supervisor has shown the employee (and other employees) that the way to get what you want is to be disruptive. This supervisor has unwittingly rewarded poor performance.

In a more subtle situation, an employee was known to be self-deprecating and the manager wanted to eliminate this behavior. The employee frequently used such phrases as, "I can't do that as well as you" and "I sure am bad when it comes to adding figures." The manager, thinking it appropriate to build the employee's self-esteem, typically responded, "No you didn't, Pat" or "That was a fine job." Why is the employee self-deprecating? Because people, especially her manager, reward that behavior.

Again, we get what we reinforce. The manager has followed his subordinate's self-deprecating response with a reinforcer of verbal praise, increasing the probability that the subordinate will engage in similar unwanted behavior in the future. Indeed, the manager has probably decreased the subordinate's self-confidence and increased her dependency on others. A more effective response would be silence, or merely ignoring the response and addressing a different topic. This alternative -- failing to acknowledge the unwanted behavior -- would decrease the probability of its recurrence. The subordinate would stop making self-deprecating responses if the manager stopped reinforcing her.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. A manager can destroy a subordinate's confidence by giving her reassurance and concern when she is self-deprecating. A valid objection might be raised that people need reassurance and concern when their behavior indicates they are frightened, upset, or lacking in confidence. It is not concern per se that is important. What is important is when concern is shown. To follow self-deprecatory behavior with a show of concern is to reinforce and increase the probability of that response. It is better to tell the person she handled a situation well and did a fine job after she actually performed well.

Other examples of inadvertently reinforcing poor performance or inappropriate behavior include:

* When employees make errors, the boss corrects them.

* Employees who do difficult tasks poorly are given easy tasks.

* Employees who are difficult to control receive job assignments giving them a lot of freedom.

* Employees who perform poorly receive a lot of attention from the boss, who behaves as a therapist.

* A department manager recommends bad employees for promotion rather than good ones because the manager cannot run the department without the good performers.

* The employee who has a problem with an assignment (or does not want to do it) goes to the supervisor, asks for help, and leaves the problem and the assignment for the supervisor to complete.

What do you think the consequence will be in each of these examples? What will co-workers learn from observing these situations?

To correct this problem, provide payoffs only when workers perform as desired. People respond to consequences whether they are aware of them or not. Do not reward employees for nonperformance. Do not play amateur psychologist; keep discussions relative to job performance. When employees make errors, they should be required to correct their errors. Assist as necessary, but do not do the job for an employee even if it is easier at the time. When employees complain repeatedly about work that is fairly assigned and unavoidable, ignore the complaints. But give verbal rewards when the work assignment is performed correctly Be wary of reverse delegation. Managers and supervisors are there to assist employees, but employees are responsible to do their job, solve their work problems, and grasp opportunities.

Scenario 3: Punishment for doing what is expected. Research on the law of effect shows that people tend to behave well less frequently when the behavior is followed by punishment. The most common reason people do not do as they are expected is simply that the desired action is punished.

Consider the following example: Suppose a computer programmer who writes clear documentation is frequently asked by her supervisor to write documentation for other programmers. If the programmer prefers doing other tasks (say, writing programs), being asked to write more than her share of documentation would be an aversive consequence to doing this task well. This is especially true if other programmers get to write less documentation as a result. Therefore, the programmer may change her behavior to avoid this consequence by writing documentation of poor quality in hopes of being assigned less of it.

Other examples of appropriate performances followed by common organizational punishments include:

* The employee who does difficult work well is assigned all the difficult work.

* The employee who makes excellent suggestions at meetings is assigned extra work to carry out the suggestions.

* The manager who does a good job and comes in under budget gets his budget cut, while the person who is over budget gets the same amount or perhaps even an increase.

* The employee who tries to be innovative hears the boss yell, "Why can't you follow instructions like everyone else?"

* The boss always waits for latecomers to arrive before commencing meetings or repeats missed information, effectively punishing those who arrive on time.

* An employee who finishes a task early is told to help other employees who had not finished their work (some of whom were most certainly wasting rime waiting for this to happen).

The adage that no good deed goes unpunished reflects the attitude among employees in many organizations that the likely result of appropriate action is negative consequences. Based on these examples, the conclusion can be drawn that people will fail to do appropriate things to avoid anticipated punishers. If punishment continues in these situations, employees will further avoid doing what is wanted. Punishment must be replaced with what employees perceive as rewards.

Scenario 4: No negative consequences for poor performance. Supervisors often do not ask certain employees to submit reports because the employees refuse to write reports, complete them late, or do them poorly When an employee complains and protests that he is given a special project, some supervisors avoid giving that employee special projects in the future because they feel it is not worth the hassle.

Some supervisors initiate disciplinary action when an employee refuses to perform, only to get pressure from higher management, the human resources department, or the union representative suggesting the supervisor is being hard-nosed or vindictive, thus forcing the supervisor to back off. Other supervisors feel that affirmative action requirements keep them from doing anything negative to poor performing minorities, females, people over 39 years old, and other "protected" groups.

Some supervisors give average or even above-average performance ratings to below-average workers because they refuse to be the ones to put a black mark in employees' records. These examples depict workers who are not performing, in part, because there are no negative consequences to them for inadequate performance. In such situations employees believe, and rightfully so, that their performance does not really matter or affect their lives.

These deplorable situations require that supervisors provide negative consequences for poor performance, for example:

* When an employee who has a desirable work location is performing badly, assign that person to a less desirable location.

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