‘Ask Aubrey’ Articles

Top Ten Reasons why you should NOT give your boss a holiday gift (Christmas, or otherwise)

December 16th, 2009

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no giftsI wrote a blog several weeks ago in which I mentioned that it might be a bad idea to give the boss a gift on boss’ day.  I have been amazed at the comments and interviews that I have received since.  The response has been more than anything I have written lately.  So I decided that in light of the approaching holidays, I might write a “Top Ten List,” a la David Letterman. 

 

Here are my top ten reasons “why you should NOT give your boss a holiday gift”: 

10.  If you do it because others do it, you are doing it for the wrong reason and you will probably resent it

9.  If the boss expects it, s/he is a bad boss to begin with and a gift may act as a positive reinforcer for bad boss behavior

8.  If a gift affects the boss’ behavior toward you, it is not a healthy work situation for you or the boss

7.  It puts pressure on the boss to reciprocate and it is not a good idea to put pressure on the boss

6.  It gets expensive for the boss if there are a number of direct or indirect reports who need reciprocating

5.  It is the economy, stupid

4.  It may cause the boss to question your motive

3.  It is a good time to break this bad habit

2.  A card with a hand written note is probably more meaningful – and it is a better, more appropriate habit

1.  The boss doesn’t need it – give it to someone who does

In addition to writing your boss a note, here are some more suggestions of how to recognize and positively reinforce your boss in a meaningful way all year round.

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What Can We Do To Motivate Our Employees?

November 15th, 2009

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What can we do to motivate our employees?” This is a question I get a lot as a consultant. Managers want to know how to motivate people. How should we respond to this question?  “Thank you.”

This question deserves more than a few sentences answer.  I’ve written more than one book on the subject.

Without asking you to buy or read the books, let me give you an executive summary.  The first thing you must do is to discover what is reinforcing to each person.  No two will be exactly the same, so a manager or supervisor must first spent the time to get to know what things are meaningful to each person – the things that they like, value and appreciate.   How do they spend their discretionary time and money.  What are the working to achieve for themselves, friends and family.  What are they things that they would like to see happen daily at work.  What are they working to be able to do long-term and short–term.  Not only those things like house, cars, savings but what are they working to be able to do this weekend, tonight and tomorrow.

The most important is to establish yourself as a positive reinforcer.  You do that by pairing yourself with positive reinforcement.  This is done most of the time by spending time with each person to find out what is important in his/her life.  If the person likes you, a pat on the back is appreciated.  If she doesn’t, it could be a punisher.

Once you know what employees positive reinforcers are, set up opportunities for them to earn them.  You obviously cannot make all of a person’s wants and desires available, but you certainly can show an interest in how the employee is doing in relation to accomplishing them.  Most people like to be appreciated for their accomplishments.  It may be as simple as taking the time for someone to tell you how they accomplished something or it may be just an acknowledgement of extra effort.  Obviously most people like to earn tangible things that cost money, however that is only a small part of what it takes to create a highly motivated workforce.  Social reinforcers should dominate and should be a daily affair.

This is a quick answer but I hope it gives you some ideas for your work. To read in-depth on the subject check out Bringing Out the Best in People and Performance Management.

Ask Aubrey, Motivation

Ask Aubrey: Performance Feedback

August 27th, 2009

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A recent vistor asked, Could you clarify why you do not consider Performance Feedback a type of reinforcement? I don’t understand how Performance Feedback is an antecedent when it seems the behavior is what triggers that feedback. Additionally, wouldn’t telling someone that they’re doing a good job at a certain task be both performance feedback and (social) positive reinforcement?business-impact2

Aubrey’s Answer

I am assuming that the performance feedback to which you refer is some graphic display showing a history of performance, where a person can see where they have been, where they are and where they are going. When positive reinforcement is paired with this performance feedback, the feedback becomes a secondary reinforcer. With enough pairings, the person usually gets reinforcement from seeing the graph even in the absence of others.

You cannot assume that performance feedback is positive to every employee. Feedback is information about performance that will allow the person to change that performance. It is quite possible that there are employees who don’t care about improving. This comes from not liking the supervisor, not trusting the supervisor or not caring about the success of the supervisor. I remember years ago, a young supervisor gathered his team together following a management meeting. He told the gathering of employees that “they told me in the meeting that if we don’t improve quality, that they are going to run me off.” One of the employees spoke up and said, “We don’t care if they run you off!” If a supervisor doesn’t establish himself/herself as a reinforcer as a first order of business, employees will not be concerned with their priorities and will not be able to develop a team where people want to help. (This is typically referred to as “buy-in.”)

If telling a person he or she is doing a good job is a positive reinforcer, then the behavior that is affected is the behavior that is occurring at that time. This is why one must be careful about when you say that to people. If you tell someone that they are doing a good job when they are on break, as much as people would like to believe that it will impact performance, it is not likely. They may like you more because of you having done it but it is really a stretch to think it will change behavior that has not yet occurred.

(For a more detailed explanation read Performance Management).

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Ask Aubrey: Dead Man Question

August 13th, 2009

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Aubrey,

In your recent article for Business Week, you state “A million hours without an accident, a reduction in errors, or perfect attendance can all be accomplished by a corpse. This doesn’t qualify as valuable behavior and deserves no celebration.” I will agree with the attendance issue. But, if you are the manager of a construction site or certain manufacturing concerns, the hours or days without an accident can be an important measure of how safety is treated (and whether you are doing your job to make it important at your job site). In many engineering situations, reducing errors is a huge benefit and saves the company hordes of cash. These are signs of real progress and cannot be accomplished by a corpse. Please clarify.

Dave M. (more…)

Ask Aubrey, Behavior Based Safety

Ask Aubrey: Behavior of the Ages

May 14th, 2009

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A blogger up for a new postition recently posed this question to Aubrey:   How would you advise approaching and managing a new staff that could possibly be older than you?  Aubrey’s Answer (more…)

Ask Aubrey, Behavior 101, Positive Reinforcement

Monetary Incentives

March 12th, 2009

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Ask Aubrey:

Hi Aubrey !!

My name is Scott, I am a human performance technologist. My question is:

Bill Abernathy in his book Managing Without Supervising suggested that R+ systems without monetary incentives are less likely to be maintained by the clients.

Once you have trained managers in R+ and helped them with their feedback system, how often did a non-monetary R+ program fade after a period of time, and what did you learn to do to help sustain it on a global or structural level? (more…)

Ask Aubrey, Incentives