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Compliant behavior involves doing  just enough  to avoid punishment like a formal reprimand, demotion, negative salary adjustment or termination.

 

When you see an entitlement attitude toward compensation, you can be fairly sure there is a disconnect between pay and performance.

 

When you see mostly compliant behaviors in the workplace, its evidence that negative reinforcement is a primary element of management style.

 

When you see lots of positive reinforcement offered (in terms of numbers of incidences - not necessarily the amount of reward), you can expect significant amounts of discretionary effort and effective performance management.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Performance managers
should be trying to "catch"
employees doing something  right so they can use positive reinforcement to get still
more of the same.


 

 

 

 

 

  

 

  

This Thoughware link connects to our section detailing the six keys to change management success.

 Follow this link to view the resumes of some our consultants and authors. Follow this link to learn about our change management and performance management e-book titles and how you can publish an e-book. Click here to send an email to Phillip Ash at Change360.com This Consulting link takes you to that section of our website that describes our consulting practice.

 

 

Rarely do workers simply refuse to change.  Only a few people will display dysfunctional behaviors or attempt to sabotage change initiatives.  No, the problem lies with the masses of people who do just enough to get by.  These people exhibit what we refer to as compliant behavior. Getting more out of people who are just getting by is the greatest challenge facing performance managers and change management consultants.
 
Properly prepared employees, who are managed using the latest behavioral science insights, can make an enormous difference in achieving the full potential of change initiatives.  They are also, most often, the rate determining factor in how fast the change initiatives can be fully implemented. 
 
The difference between compliance-level effort and full-potential, we refer to as discretionary effort.  In other words, it’s the difference between what you have to do and what your potential is.  Our experience tells us that discretionary effort can produce between 50% to 100% more performance than compliant work behaviors.  The primary reason so many change management initiatives fail is because of the lack of discretionary effort.  This point must be addressed be your change management strategy. 

In managing human performance, the ingredients that lead to maximum discretionary effort are clear and indisputable among behavioral scientists.  They involve a simple four-step process: OBJECTIVE SETTING, MEASUREMENT, FEEDBACK and CONSEQUENCES.  Objective setting means setting performance objectives in clear, pinpointed, and measurable terms.  Measurement means creating a quantifiable, systematic way of knowing how well employees are performing.  Feedback means that employees receive performance data in a frequent and usable form.  Consequences means something meaningful happens to the performer as a result of their performance.

Though the model is simple, it has been our experience that organizations have found it to be extremely difficult to effectively apply all four components - thus undermining overall outcomes.  For instance, if an organization sets objectives but does not measure progress, it creates an approach without credibility.  But what if a company has clear performance objectives, has developed crisp measurements of progress toward those objectives, and provides timely and accurate feedback?  That would be really great, right?  Not really.  At program like that will be only partially effective without consequences for the performers.  Consequences are what really drive performance.

The most common problem we see are consequences that are not linked in any systematic way to clear objectives and measures.  Because most consequences are unlinked to performance, we create an atmosphere of entitlement.

Behavioral scientists tell us that managing performance is as easy as A-B-C.  An antecedent (A) is something that precedes a behavior (B).  A consequence (C) is what happens to a person when they perform the indicated behavior.  Every behavior is always followed by one of four consequences.

  • Positive Reinforcement - the performer gets something they want so the frequency/strength of the behavior increases.
     
  • Negative Reinforcement - the performer stops something they don't want so the frequency/strength of the behavior increases.
     
  • Punishment - the performer gets something they don't want so the frequency/strength of the behavior decreases.
     
  • Extinction - nothing happens to the performers so the behavior decreases in frequency/strength very slowly.
Since its beginnings the 1930’s, there has been a growing body of research and knowledge called Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA).  ABA focuses on understanding the origins of behaviors and how to change them.   ABA research findings clearly indicate that consequences hold the key to changing behavior.  Research findings are substantiated by our own experience, that organization make much too much use of negative reinforcement when they should be using positive reinforcement.  Simply stated, people do not to be told that they must change or they will be fired or their careers adversely affected.  This reinforcement strategy will produce little more than compliant behavior, high rates of turnover, and very little discretionary effort.  Much more use of positive reinforce must be planned and utilized. 
 
We have found the smallest of rewards, coffee cups, t-shirts, baseball caps, can have a big impact.  Be creative and try to think small.  It's typically more effective to use thousands of small positive reinforcements than just a few large ones.
 
All too often, the predisposition of managers is to observe people at work until they can “catch” someone making a mistake (at which time they use punishment).  Or they announce, “don’t let me catch you doing …” (negative reinforcement).  To get the behaviors we want as quickly as possible, we should attempt to “catch” people making the changes we want, and reward them.

Think about a typical day at work in most large organizations, in terms of the consequences to your behavior.  Most of the time nothing happens to you - maybe 80% or more of your work behaviors are followed by extinction.  Next most common, at perhaps 10% of the time, is negative reinforcement that produces compliant behaviors.  That leaves about 6% for punishment when you've made a mistake and 4% for positive reinforcement.  This is not to say that you get things more wrong than right - only that a mistake is much more likely to get noticed and punishment applied while good work gets largely ignore because, "that's what is expected." 

It's going to take a long time to make change happen and improve performance like this.  We need to quickly reduce the extinction to maybe 70%, increase positive reinforcement to 20%, reduce negative reinforcement to 7% and punishment to 3%.  You do this by reducing entitlement compensation programs, be careful about communications that are interpreted as "do this or else" (negative reinforcement).  But most importantly, train managers and supervisors to focus on finding the many, many small improvements and apply positive reinforcement to increase their rate and strength - catch people doing something right and reward them.

We have found two distinct dimensions of organizational culture (Foundation Factors and Motivational Factors) that impact discretionary effort and measure them with a diagnostic survey we call the Performance Environment Survey.  Below a certain level, the Foundation Factors can lead to dysfunctional behaviors and low levels of discretionary effort - but they cannot drive performance higher and higher.  Examples of Foundation Factors include: Health & Safety, Resolution of Disputes, and Trust & Confidence.  Discretionary effort is driven by Motivational Factors like: Access to Information, Timely & Meaningful Feedback, Sense of Purpose, the Work Itself, and Learning Opportunities.

We have found the Performance Environment Survey to be an excellent tool for diagnosing performance management problems and identify opportunities to create greater discretionary effort.  As we have said before, "You can't manage what you haven't measured."  This is true for developing a high performance work environment that will produce high levels of discretionary effort.  Information on a "AS IS" performance environment is needed to focus developmental efforts and establish realistic "TO BE" objectives.  Annual surveys are needed to measure progress toward the "TO BE" object and refocus the process of development.

 

 

 

Key #6

Maximizing Discretionary
Effort

maximizing discretionary effort

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

Follow this link to review our Six Keys to Change Management Success.

 Follow this link to learn about how to develop a business case for change and why it's important to the success of the change journey. Follow this link to learn how you can overcome initial resistance to change. Follow this link to learn about how to create the potential to perform with competencies. Follow this link to learn about sustaining sponsorship throughout the change journey. Follow this link to learn how to create linkages between change sponsors and change agents.