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New Year’s Resolutions: Beware!

January 3rd, 2012

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MH900438914The origin of New Year’s Resolutions can be linked to pre-Christian times in Rome, thousands of years ago.  So every year about this time, I ask audiences where I speak how many made New Year’s Resolutions.  What I have noticed is that fewer and fewer have gone through the ritual.  Does that mean that fewer people are interested in carrying on this ancient tradition?  I think not.  In fact, it’s been reported that more than half of those that proclaim resolutions fail at realizing them. The reality is that most people who make resolutions don’t keep them – many don’t keep them even for a day.

The primary mistake people make in making resolutions is that they think that changing some personal behavior or habit is simply a matter of will power or “making up your mind.”  It is as if people who fail don’t grunt enough, don’t have enough resolve (how do you get more of that?), are not really serious (How can you increase your “really seriousness?).

The real mistake lies in not planning or managing consequences well.  It is easy to resolve to quit drinking, lose weight, start exercising, etc. but it is harder to plan consequences that you will actually be able to self-administer to get the behavior change you seek.  Therefore, the resolution is nothing more than a goal, and goals aren’t reached by grunting, wishing or talking; they are reached when you have consequences that support the behavior change.

Here are some practical suggestions to help you be successful should you want to carry on the New Year’s Resolution tradition.

  1. Plan consequences for behavior change. Allow yourself to do things that you like contingent on a certain accomplishment. In other words, if you resolve to do some project in your house, commit to getting it done before you sit down to watch your favorite TV program.
  2. Set very small sub-goals. The more, the better.  If weight loss is a target, set a goal of no more than one pound a week.  The trick is to set a goal that you are almost sure to reach.  Less than a pound is ok if you can reliably measure it on your scales.  Smoke one cigarette less per day; walk around the block.  No goal can be too small at the beginning.
  3. Post a graph of your progress at home or in the office where everyone can see it.  Set the parameters so that progress is easy to see.  Tell family and co-workers what you are doing.  Use social media to show results.  Put the graph on Facebook, Twitter, etc. The more people who see your progress will reinforce you for it and in return you will be more motivated to keep at it.
  4. Celebrate every success (every goal accomplishment), no matter how small.  Reward yourself.  Publicize your small accomplishments.  “I am one step closer to finishing that big report.”
  5. In addition to rewards that cost money (buying something for yourself, dinner at a fancy restaurant, a movie, some new software for your computer, an iPad, etc.) think of rewards that have a low cost or have no financial cost.  Use the “IF I do X, then I will do Y” contingency.  Or, “when I do X, then I will do Y.”  If your resolution is to clean the attic, basement or garage, simply say, “When I put something in the trash, I will watch T.V, answer my email, play a computer game or go to McDonalds for breakfast.”  You will be surprised how quickly you finish the task with this simple start as long as you maintain the contingency “When…then.”

By the way don’t do it in reverse which most people are tempted to do, that is, “I will work in the attic after I come home from McDonalds.”  I call that bribery since it reinforces the wrong behavior.  You get the reward for promising to do the behavior, not for actually doing it.  Not a good plan.

Most failures to reach personal or work goals result from poor goal setting and from failure to plan positive reinforcers for success.  If you start the New Year with small goals and a multitude of reinforcement, 2012 may be your best year yet!

Behavior 101, Consequences, Goals, Motivation, Negative Reinforcement, Performance, Positive Reinforcement, Results, feedback

Why Some Managers Fail at Getting Effective and Efficient Performance

December 7th, 2011

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 MH900399109To succeed in business today, everything must constantly be scrutinized. As such, leaders and managers are forced to evaluate and reevaluate performance; specifically the performance of their people and its impact on the company’s bottom line. For some, their role is rewarding and the path forward is clear. For others, they are left wondering how to get direct reports to deliver the performance needed to achieve necessary business outcomes.

Effective performance is not something that only lucky managers can achieve from their employees. It’s also not something you’re born with. For those who find themselves challenged to get desired performance from direct reports, it’s likely they have fallen victim to some common traps. Here are two traps that failing managers can fall into:  

Using ineffective management practices: In management, just because something doesn’t work doesn’t mean managers won’t continue to use it. So many practices have been institutionalized through the years that it’s no wonder managers think nothing of adopting them. Ranking is one such practice whose intention is to drive motivation to be the best but in reality it devalues the performance of all those who aren’t at the top. What managers don’t understand is that, among other things, it creates internal competition and doesn’t motivate the ones on the bottom to improve or those at the top to reach higher. Unfortunately, it often creates enmity between those ranked higher and those rated lower. The reality is that if you aren’t at the top, or close to it, this process becomes demotivating as they realize they will never be able to perform better than those above them. 

Another common, and unintentional practice, is when managers use the ‘you did a good job but’ approach when providing feedback or attempting to correct poor performance. When managers provide reinforcement for the things employees did right but then end it on a note of what more they can improve, employees forget the good and focus only on what they did wrong. If this is done often, employees hate to hear the good because they know some criticism is likely to follow. They also begin to suspect that the only reason you say something good is to set them up for bad news.

A frequent mistake in correcting behavior is to “sandwich” the problem behavior between two compliments. Managers are often taught that saying something positive before mentioning the problem makes the employee more responsive to the negative and by ending with a positive it protects the person’s ego. What it does, in fact, is to dilute the message at best and provide positive reinforcement for the problem behavior at worst. Break this bad management practice. It may make you feel better about the correcting but has a very unreliable impact on the performer.

These methods even if done with the best of intentions are demotivating and usually result in employees doing only what they are required to do.

Unintentionally rewarding negative behavior: When managers don’t understand positive reinforcement as a scientific concept many problems usually occur in an effort to build a positive culture. For example, the worst advice you could ever give or get is: Always be positive! While it sounds good and many people strive to eliminate negativism from their relationships, we know that if you are positive at the wrong time, you will get more of the wrong behavior. Behavior that you want more of needs positive reinforcement; Behavior that you don’t want, does not.

A question to ask that will help you avoid rewarding negative behavior is, “What does the person want?” If bad behavior gets him what he wants, you can count on the fact that he will do it more often. For example, I have heard people say that “All he wants to do is argue.” If that is true, then arguing with him will only increase argumentative behavior. Positive reinforcement is a powerful interpersonal tool. Use it well and it will result in healthy, productive relationships. Use it poorly and it will make you and those you work with miserable, unhappy and unproductive. 

To create a productive and happy work group, you must:

  1. Know the reinforcers of those who work with you – everyone is different
  2. Establish yourself as a positive reinforcer – pair yourself with the delivery of meaningful reinforcers
  3. Reinforce incremental improvement – the smaller, the better
  4. Don’t stop – continue as long as you want performance

Behavior 101, Consequences, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Reinforcement, feedback

Performance Management Isn’t What You Think

November 25th, 2011

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R+ logo croppedYou may not want to miss my latest Talent Management Blog where I challenge readers on their definition of Performance Management and recommend that we rename Performance Appraisals to something that more clearly encompasses its original intent. Click over to find out what I think it ought to be called.

Also, don’t miss this month’s special report on Performance Management where you can read more from me and other leaders in the strategic HR arena.

Behavior 101, Goals, Leadership, Motivation, Negative Reinforcement, Performance Appraisal, feedback

Personal Responsibility within a Behavioral Approach

October 27th, 2011

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42-15501641Guest post by
Judy Agnew

We have received much positive feedback on our book Safe by Accident and we are delighted that so many people find it helpful.  There is one issue that some people are struggling with so we want to take this opportunity to clarify.  Some readers are having trouble reconciling our discussion of the influence of organizational/management systems on at-risk behavior and the concept of personal responsibility for safety.  The question is: if at-risk behavior is found to be influenced by management-controlled organizational systems, does that let the frontline performer off the hook?

To some extent this is a philosophical issue.  The notion of personal responsibility is embedded in our culture.  It is present in our judicial, political and social systems and has served us well in many respects.  In a work setting, telling employees that they are “responsible for their personal safety” at work is helpful as a broad antecedent.  It sets the expectation that each person must do what they can to protect themselves and others.  The question is what specifically are they responsible for?  Telling miners they are responsible for their own safety and then sending them into a mine that is poorly ventilated and structurally unsound is absurd.  They cannot be responsible for their own safety under those conditions because they do not control them.  We think everyone will agree with this extreme example.  The difficulty comes with less extreme examples.  Workers who are trained in procedures but don’t follow them consistently, for example.  Our position is that there is shared responsibility in most cases.  Our concern with the notion of “personal responsibility” is that it sounds like an easy solution to a very complex problem.  We are sure that some of you have told employees in your organization that they are responsible for their personal safety.  We assume since you are reading this, that hasn’t solved all your safety problems.  Antecedents rarely do.

So where does personal responsibility fit in?

Let’s back up. The goal in safety is to prevent injury and illness.  If we say that people are responsible for their own safety, then it follows that if they are not safe, they are to blame. Our point is that blaming people for things that are, at least to some extent, outside of their control does not accomplish the goal.  If it did more organizations would be perfectly safe by now.  But let us be very clear: we are not suggesting that accountability (a synonym of responsibility) is bad.  Accountability is essential in safety.  However, it is critical that organizations first determine WHO should be accountable for WHAT.  The word, accountability, is often code for whom to punish.  The issue is not who should be punished but what actions will correct the situation so that it will not recur.  Although punishment is appropriate under certain circumstances, we see too often that organizations punish only the person at the point of the accident without fully understanding the systemic issues that have contributed. This is not only unjust, but it fails to rectify the situation.

Systems are designed and maintained by people.   Therefore, there should be accountability for those who control the systems to change the systems if they are faulty.  Once the systems are changed then everyone who works in those systems should be held accountable (positively reinforced for engaging in safe behaviors and corrected when they are not).  This is not about absolving personal responsibility–quite the opposite.  It is about establishing accountability, at all levels, that will lead to true improvement.  Frontline performers need to be held accountable for those things under their control.  They should be responsible for reporting hazards, providing feedback to keep peers safe, participating in safety meetings, talking to management when systems make working safely more difficult, offering solutions, and working to improve their own safe behaviors.  Frontline performers will be more successful in “taking personal responsibility for their safety” if they work in partnership with management and those who control the organizational systems within which they work.

Behavior Based Safety, Consequences, Culture "Change", Leadership, Motivation, Performance, Positive Reinforcement, feedback

Incident Investigation: Using Science to Develop Safe Working Habits

October 20th, 2011

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Understanding human behavior scientifically is critical in safety, particularly when it comes to investigating when something has gone wrong. In this video blog, Dr. Judy Agnew and Dr. Aubrey Daniels explain how a scientific approach can lead to a safer workplace and why consequences are the most important thing in determining whether or not someone will do something again.


Behavior Based Safety, Consequences, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Reinforcement, Videos, feedback, punishment

A Dozen Ways to Weather the Economic Storm

October 16th, 2011

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CB028070Guest Blogger: Darnell Lattal

Nowadays you can’t turn on the television, pick up a newspaper, or read a magazine without seeing headlines about jobs and the turbulent economy. Inundated with negative news and experiencing the all-too-real repercussions of a financial downturn can be downright depressing and can easily impact performance at work.

Believe it or not, there is something productive we can do. Managers and employees alike can infuse the workplace with meaningful activity by focusing on behaviors that lead to positive outcomes. The following twelve tips will help any manager wade through these difficult economic times; delivering their best performance and that of those who work with them.

• Be realistically optimistic. Don’t spend time worrying about things that are beyond your control. Focus only on those things you can control and provide a sense of realistic secure messages that, while times are difficult, there is a future.

• Communicate! When hard decisions are needed, make them and communicate them cleanly and clearly to the individuals involved. If you need to lay people off, consider how you can support them during that transition, through community services that might help or via other methods. Encourage dialogue and provide straightforward answers.

• Have a contingency plan. Look to your own level as to where you can cut, reduce, and manage, including your own pay before you begin looking at other levels of the organization. If you are at the executive level, you should be the first to step up. You can definitely share this information, but don’t advertise, “Hey I’m a good guy. I’ve just taken a pay cut!”

• Invite feedback. Figuring out the honorable thing to do when you’re under the gun and your company is in high distress is difficult. Have trusted advisors who will always challenge you to think clearly and correctly and listen to your clients’ difficulties as well. For example, if they need a certain period of delayed payments and it’s reasonable for you to consider that, try working out payment terms with your customers.

• Be energetic in your own efforts to find financial resources and clients for your company. Don’t retreat and don’t become too controlled by what you read or hear in the news. Look beyond the newspapers and examine what you’re actually seeing in your organization. Many times we may find that business continues and even develops, but if we get too gun-shy, too soon, we don’t test good opportunities.

• Be willing to spend money during this time. Even while you’re reserving money, don’t retrench so much that you fail to market and reach out. Be careful not to conserve in areas that really will harm your future and growth over the long run.

• Consider a pay-for-performance system. You may not be able to give wage increases but you can consider setting up pay-for-performance based on profit sharing. By doing so, you will keep the organization whole while keeping salaries in place. Even at a time when you can’t give raises, you can reward people’s dedication, commitment, and performance by including them in any profits. By having a well-structured, pay-for-performance system, you also make people aware of what it takes to get to that profit.

• Engage all employees. Use the skills of your staff to build tools, materials, and resources that you will need going forward. Give employees a sense of purpose by enlisting them in helping to complete those projects you’ve put on hold. That may mean you need to use some creativity but that’s essential because their effort to show up is a valuable gift to you. Treat it as such.

• Be flexible. Another alternative is to offer your employees flexible time for their extra efforts. For example, when it’s possible, let them work from home and save on the high cost of gas. But do so carefully, because part of getting through these rough spots is a sense of teamwork and collaboration that happens when people are together trying to solve problems.

• Be honest and forthright about the organization’s economic reality. Always keep the information flowing. Don’t freeze up on giving employees the data they need including where you are financially, what’s coming down the pike, and what the future looks like. Have one-on-one conversations with individuals. Be honest; tell them when things are tough and are not going to get better for a while. Let them know you will do all you can to make their lives good and that you’ll remember their contributions, but only if you mean it. In the meantime, do not punish people if they need to explore employment possibilities elsewhere.

• Empower employees. Encourage your employees to look for opportunities to find business. Have meetings and ask for suggestions about what the company can do. You might get some good ideas!

• Add fun and recognition. No matter what the economic times are, we can still bring in lunches and have little celebrations of events that are happening, just to keep the mood up. The company can support get-togethers such as going to the movies or taking a break in the middle of the day to go to the park. Try to think of events that will reinforce employees. During an economic downturn, management should step back and really look at people’s contributions. Take the time to remember people in specific ways for what they have done. Make that public, enjoy it, and celebrate even in the face of tough times. Employees can do the same with peer-to-peer appreciation. Sometimes that may be difficult to do, but it’s important.

  

Downsizing, Goals, Incentives, Leadership, Motivation, Performance Pay, Positive Reinforcement, Rewards, feedback

Parenting and Behavior: Examples from Real Parents

August 30th, 2011

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CB106473I want to start by saying ‘thank you’ to those who sent me stories of how you applied the tools and principles of behavioral science to your parenting challenges.  I wish I could recall all of the stories I’ve heard through the years but in the end what is most satisfying to me is seeing people light up about how well the behavioral technology worked and how it leads to positive behavior where previously it had been problematic, and in their view, unresolvable.

With that, I share the following stories, from real parents, about the positive impact the science of behavior has had on their personal lives:

Learning to Drive

When my son, Sam, was learning how to drive, even though I knew better, I found myself only calling out the things he did wrong. Once I realized what I was doing wrong; I had to force myself to pay attention and identify the things he did right, and then specifically tell him about it.  The first behavior I made a point to notice was following the speed limit.  After watching him drive across town for a little while, I told him I noticed how well he did in following the speed limit.  He was so happy and proud that I noticed, and said “I know! I do it all the time!”   His response reinforced me to start noticing more of what he does right.  I then made a list of specific driving behaviors to remind myself to observe them such as, maintaining 3 second following distance, making complete stops, or stopping with enough space to see the bottom of the tires of the car in front of you.  I only picked one at a time so that I wouldn’t overdo it.  It really made me realize the strong tendency to fall back into the pattern of only noticing the things he does wrong. Without a deliberate effort to watch for specific behaviors (that I had to write down and look for), I would have fallen back into the old ways.

Household Chores

Pinpointing seemed overwhelming to me when I thought about my work environment but it became more manageable after I first applied it at home. I learned its importance when working to teach my son John to wash the dishes when he was about 7 or 8.  It was his task at night to wash and my task to dry.  When we first started, I was confused when he left the kitchen with several dirty pots and pans in the sink and went to play.  I said “Wait a minute, you’re not done!”  He said “Yes I am!”  I said “What about these?,” pointing to the dirty pots and pans.  He looked at me begrudgingly saying “You said I only had to do the dishes!”

What Makes Them Happy

My daughter used an approach to identify things that were reinforcing to her twin daughters when they were 18 months old. She wanted to determine effective reinforcers for behaviors associated with toilet training and also for other toddler behaviors. Individually, she placed several objects in front of the first child and whatever item the daughter picked first was identified as a reinforcer. She then placed the remaining items in front of the child and repeated the process until 3 items were identified. She then went through the same process with the second child. Once she did this with both girls, she had effective reinforcers. It’s worth noting that reinforcers do change so the process, or a modified version, will need to be repeated over time. By the way, the twins picked different objects.

Seeing Eye to Eye with Your Teenager

While I thought I had tried everything to improve my relationship with my teenage daughter, our relationship still felt strained.  After learning about the 4:1 Rule (four positive comments to one negative), I thought it was worth a try.  Over a one week period, I consciously worked at applying this rule, and did so as genuinely as possible.  I saw improvement in the first day and kept at it.  By weeks end, our conversations had significantly improved, and were even enjoyable. This not only taught me how to improve my personal relationships but it also taught me that when you focus on the positives, you see more things you would have otherwise not seen.

Consequences, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Reinforcement, Rewards, feedback, punishment

Twitter: More than a Social Platform—An Effective (and cool!) tool for building fluency in Pinpointing

June 8th, 2011

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Guest Post by John Green

twitterWithout fail, one of the most challenging tasks managers and leaders face in building coaching fluency models is developing pinpointing skills. I see it consistently with my new clients during their upfront training sessions, as they struggle with being clear about “what they want”.  What they come to learn is that guiding them from the global high-level, often-subjective “feedback” to something that is a bit more specific and objective is probably the most important skill they need to build.

As I check-in with these same clients over the years I consistently hear that “pinpointing is hard” and a skill that they have to continuously work on.  It is no surprise that the more they practice the better they get.

As coaching models continue to move to an increasingly virtual environment, this skill becomes even more critical in shaping the behaviors that will have the desired impacts. Effective virtual coaching models should emphasize increasing both the quantity (do more coaching) and the quality (improve the value of your coaching) of their fluency.

By increasing touch points, coaches can increase the quantity of their coaching and therefore, how the skill of clear, objective coaching (pinpoints) influences the quality of these interactions.

For example, many of my clients are using text messaging as an effective tool for increasing touch points. Both coaches and performers like the flexibility and ease of using this technology to “communicate” on critical performance issues.

Twitter takes it a step further to enhance pinpointing skills. Because Twitter has a 140 character limitation per “tweet” it is an excellent tool to shape the pinpointing skill.  Here are two real life client examples:

A Pharmaceutical Sales client moved towards a virtual field trip model in lieu of the infrequent and highly formalized traditional Field Visits.

  • Pre-call Planning: “What is the one thing you want your physician to do or say today?” (65 characters)
  • Post-call debrief: “Tell me one thing you learned today about your physician’s prescribing habits?” (77 characters).
  • Touch Point: Who is your most important call today? Can I add any value to your call plan?” (77 characters).
  • Pinpoint: “Develop a question that will allow your physician to share her view of your product,” (87 characters).

A Banking/Financial Services client implemented a customer-centric selling model that is a key component to their strategic planning process. Coaches focused on shaping the behaviors that will result in clients perceiving this organization as “different” than other firms vying for their business.

  • Touch Point: “What was the next best step for your client identified in your strategy session today?” (87 characters).
  • Touch Point: “What was the impact of sending your team the client profile data 2 days prior to the strategy session?” (104 characters).
  • Post Call debrief: “What was one thing you learned was important to your client that was not part of your pre-call plan? (101 characters).

Both of these clients have reported that building this tool helps (forces!) them to practice pinpointing. Both the coaches and the performers are becoming increasingly comfortable with this dynamic and appreciate the level of specificity and objectiveness that comes along with it.

The next challenge is to help the performers shape their responses to “fit” the Twitter requirements. (More on this phase in my next posting).

Give this approach a try and let us know how it goes @greenjohnj and @aubreydaniels

Performance, Technology, coaching, feedback

Can you Speak Up? I Can’t Hear You

May 4th, 2011

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Guest post by Bart Sevin, Ph.D.

CB051666Maureen Dowd recently wrote an Op Ed piece in the New York Times entitled Giving Doctors Orders, in which she discusses the importance of speaking up and asking your doctor to wash his or her hands in front of you prior to beginning an examination. She cited CNN reports and book authors who all recommend saying something to your physician if you don’t see them wash their hands with your own eyes. Sounds like a good idea, right? So what’s the problem? Well there are actually two problems: 1) getting people to start speaking up, and then 2) getting them to keep doing it. I have seen this all too often in working with clients, particularly on the safety side (but also on the non-safety side). Dowd’s article echoes one of the biggest challenges employees at all levels face, speaking up and giving feedback to others about their behavior, particularly those in authority.

Why is it so important for people to speak up in the moment when they see someone either engaging in a desired behavior (e.g., doctors washing their hands in front of patients) or an undesired behavior? And, why do people sometimes remain quiet even when they observe someone engaging in behavior that could (or will) negatively impact others or themselves? Why won’t they speak up more often, and what will it take to get them to start speaking up and doing so on an ongoing basis? The answer to all these questions is consequences.

First and foremost, it’s important to speak up in the moment (rather than saying something to the doctor later as you’re leaving the office) because the immediacy of the feedback increases its effectiveness.  By interrupting the at-risk behavior and helping the person begin practicing the correct behavior now, it also holds the performer personally accountable for doing the correct behavior.  Unfortunately the consequence history of people who typically say nothing when they should is one of being punished or penalized when they have given feedback in the past or they have ‘rules of conduct’ about respecting authority learned at an early age. The rule might be “respecting doctors means not questioning them about their practices”. In Dowd’s example, for instance, the negative consequences for asking your doctor to wash his or her hands might have been the doctor dismissively telling you his or her hands are already clean and even anticipating a sideways look that screams, ‘You dare to challenge me?”

What is needed to get people to speak up more often and keep doing so, is more positive reinforcement (R+). There are strategies that help to build in more R+ for speaking up and giving feedback. The first is to make sure that the person giving the feedback focuses on giving positive feedback for desired behavior, not just correcting undesired behavior. Dowd’s article focuses on correcting doctors when they fail to wash in front of you, but she doesn’t mention what patients should do when doctors do wash their hands in front of you. I’m sure we all can think of a number of times we’ve witnessed physicians washing their hands in the examination room just before beginning the examination. That’s an opportunity to speak up and strengthen that behavior!

Secondly, when giving constructive or negative feedback, plan before you do it. By doing this you help build in positive reinforcement for the giver. A very common strategy in sales is to anticipate the objections you’ll get from customers and plan what you’ll say to overcome the objections so you move one step closer to closing the sale. In my experience coaching frontline workers, I use the same approach: anticipate the push-back a co-worker (or your doctor) will give when you speak up about their undesired behavior, plan what you’ll say to overcome their resistance and move them closer to beginning to practice the desired behavior now.

Successfully overcoming resistance and getting people to demonstrate the correct behavior are usually very reinforcing to the person giving the feedback. In fact, many sales people begin to see objections as reinforcers because they represent an immediate opportunity for them to address any concerns and move the customer closer to saying yes.

Finally, it’s possible to build in more R+ for the person giving feedback by coaching the person receiving feedback on how to accept feedback well, such as thanking the person giving it and demonstrating strong listening skills by attempting the correct behavior. Apply these lessons to yourself as well.  Learning to speak up about others’ behavior may require that you look at your own at-risk behaviors, addressing the feedback you get from co-workers, reinforcing them for providing you corrective feedback, and inviting feedback in the first place.

We have many opportunities in our everyday environment to speak up when we see both desired and undesired behavior. By understanding the science behind reinforcement, you can positively impact your own behavior and the behavior of those with whom you interact.

Consequences, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Reinforcement, feedback, punishment

Are Googlers really that different from the rest of us?

March 23rd, 2011

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GoogleplexwelcomesignThis is not the first blog I have written about mistakes I think Google is making in how they are managing the company.  It will probably not be the last.  This blog was prompted by an article a friend sent me from the New York Times by Adam Bryant, Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss. 

It appears that Google has invested quite a sum to determine what kind of boss they need to manage their company in the future.  As Bryant says, “So as only a data-mining giant like Google can do, it began analyzing performance reviews, feedback surveys and nominations for top-manager awards,  they correlated phrases, words, praise and complaints.”  He also reported, “Once they had some working theories, they figured out a system for interviewing managers to gather more data, and to look for evidence that supported their notions (bold italics are mine).  This activity involved more than 10,000 interviews and over 100 variables.

With this kind of “research” it is no wonder that the results were “so forehead-slappingly obvious.”  They found—get this—that managers had a greater impact on employees’ performance and how they felt about their job than any other factor.  How many thousands of employee hours and company resources did it consume to come to this conclusion?

Google now trains managers based on the results of this study.  Quotes from a couple of managers who had been through the training speak to what they learned.  One said, “…two of the most important things I can do is just make sure I have some time for them and to be consistent.  And that’s more important than doing the rest of the stuff.”  Another said the training helped him understand the importance of giving clear and direct feedback. 

While I understand that someone who is inconsistent and does not give clear and direct feedback will be less effective than those who do, those things will not create a company that brings out the best in its employees.   Even spending time with employees does not guarantee an improvement in morale or performance.  It is possible that spending time with the boss can be a punishing experience.  Many managers who give clear and consistent feedback are also very punishing, and can therefore create employees who are only willing to give just enough do get by.

The most important thing Google can teach its managers is how to deliver contingent positive reinforcement.  They are not likely to do that since their culture is built on non-contingent reinforcement.  Indeed one of their 10 Golden Rules for managing knowledge workers is to cater to their every need. I think they have misinterpreted Peter Drucker who said to strip away everything that gets in their way.  I think Drucker meant that a company should eliminate all the unnecessary administrative goobledegoop.  What Google has interpreted it to mean is to provide things like first-class dining facilities, gyms, laundry rooms, massage rooms, haircuts, carwashes, dry cleaning, commuting buses—just about anything a hardworking engineer might want.   The problem is that they are also all the things a non-hardworking engineer might want.  The assumption is that having these things available for employees will cause them to spend more time in productive work.  I know of no research to support this notion.

It seems to me that Google has spent a lot of time and money to learn that employees at Google are just like employees everywhere else.  They all respond to the laws of human behavior.  Googlers are not so special that they follow their own set of behavioral laws.  By learning those laws, executives and other managers at Google can save a lot of time and money and develop truly effective managers who bring out the best in all employees.

Behavior 101, Consequences, Leadership, Performance Appraisal, Positive Reinforcement, Results, Technology, feedback

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