Combining Human Drives for Better Reward Programs

In their book “Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices,” Harvard Business School professors Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria laid out a new theory on human behavior. The idea: we are all influenced and guided by four drives: acquiring, bonding, learning, and defending. Recent research by the Incentive Research Federations on the neuroscience of behavior economics discusses these drives and their significance to current reward and incentive planners.

Nohria and Lawrence found that the drives act as motivational “hot buttons” and when pressed individually motivation can rise marginally…but when combined motivation can grow exponentially causing large impacts to engagement, retention and commitment.   The IRF research essentially concludes that reward and recognition systems can provide companies with a powerful tool because this single intervention can activate these four drives.  Let’s examine each drive in relation to a reward and recognition program:

Drive to Acquire

Employees are driven to acquire tangible goods, intangible skills and status.  Reward systems are driven by goal setting which requires clear and defined consequences for achieving them.  They train managers to recognize positive work performance aligned to the behaviors they are trying to achieve.

Drive to Bond

Employees desire to have authentic relationships with other employees. Companies want employees to work in partnership to solve difficult problems.  When organizations provide rewards for group achievement they are working in tandem with the drive to bond.

Drive to Innovate

It’s natural for employees to want to learn more about their company as well as the world around them.  They can use the knowledge to create new thoughts, systems, processes, relationships and goods based on what they learn. Organizations can add time to their recognition efforts to allow employees to learn and formulate ideas, awarding them for those ideas that are implemented.

Drive to Defend

Employees want to be safe and secure and they will defend the objects, people and ideas they hold dear.  Companies want to minimize the activation of this drive and the negativity that comes along with it.  They can use the communication channels associated with reward and recognition systems to remind employees often of their importance to the companies mission. 

In summary the IRF research maintains that…

“In a single instance of giving an employee a reward or recognition, the organization allows an employee to acquire status (and potentially good or services), to bond with their team or the person giving the recognition, to more deeply comprehend what is important to the organization, and to defend the very deeply held belief that he or she is good at what they do and has chosen the right organization for employment.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Do You Have a Do It Yourself Sales Incentive Mentality?

The traditional carrot-and-stick type incentive programs put the focus solely on the result, and not on the means of achieving the result. While these types of programs can achieve results, they can also encourage bad behaviors that can do damage to the brand and hurt sales in the long run by creating unhappy customers who speak out on social media. It’s well known what some salespeople can do in narrowly focused programs – shift the timing of sales to maximize points, sell something a customer doesn’t want, push harder than is appropriate, make promises that can’t be kept, etc. It is unfortunate, but since the only program measure is the outcome, some salespeople do resort to such tactics!

For many years the incentive industry has extolled the importance of designing programs that not only address the results, but also the best ways to achieve them. The industry is full of research and papers from groups like Incentive Marketing Association, PPAI, SITE, Incentive Gift Card Council, Rewards and Recognition Network and the Incentive Research Foundation.  These organizations house a wealth of knowledge and have produced extensive research to help design incentive and recognition programs that will produce results.  Unfortunately these materials are almost never used.  Why?

In the high energy quick fix mentality of today’s business, people planning incentive programs are looking for a quick fix or a bright shiny object to motivate and often don’t want to hear about, let alone pay for, a program design process, even with the promise of better results or return-on-investment measurement. Many managers feel qualified to follow their own instincts. This often boils down to a determination that motivation is just a matter of dangling desirable carrots with perhaps a few unwritten threats thrown in for good measure. 

If you are interested in planning a sales incentive program we would advise you to engage the award companies who have the knowledge to help you make it successful. Award companies have knowledge to design programs based on accumulated best practices.  Just like the great mechanic, they not only know how to use a wrench, they know what nut to turn. 

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

How to Release the Drive to Innovate

Which reward system can you design and implement that will activate all four drives of human behavior?  

Believe it or not, the one program that will incorporate more of these drives to acquire, bond, innovate and defend is a company wide suggestion system.  No, not a traditional old box on the wall suggestion system, but a completely innovative approach to obtaining cost savings or revenue generating ideas you’re your employees. 

In the early 1980’s Maritz Motivation Solutions developed and patented a program called IdeaSystem.  It was a short term high intensity all employee suggestion program that garnered thousands of ideas from client companies which then rewarded employee teams with prizes when the ideas were accepted, evaluated and implemented.  These programs produced dramatic financial results for the sponsoring companies and provided tremendous employee engagement as well.

Here are just a few of the ways that these well designed suggestion systems incorporate the four drives of human behavior:

Drive to Acquire:  There are significant tangible and intangible awards offered to every employee from participation, to being on a team, to be on an evaluation committee, to formulating ideas and presenting them to management.

Drive to Bond:  Every employee has the opportunity to be involved in self formed teams that collaborate on a variety of revenue generation to cost saving ideas.  The interaction and cross functional entrepreneurship is significant.

Drive to Innovate:  Working with company material, and through relationships encouraged throughout the company, teams meet and formulate uncanny ideas that produce dynamic results.  It is innovation at its finest.

Drive to Defend:  A suggestion system of this nature reminds employees often of their importance to the organization’s mission and the dramatic financial results can provide the company with decided profit outcomes and competitive advantages.

With all the digital advances within the incentive industry today, we have the expertise to help design and coach a company through the process of developing a suggestion system of this nature and will be glad to assist at any level. 

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

How to Activate the Four Human Drives in a Recognition & Rewards System

According to Professors Nohria and Lawrence from Harvard Business School we are all motivated and guided by four drives: acquiring, bonding, learning, and defending. In a recent paper from the Incentive Research Federation, they discussed how you can activate these drives within a well-designed reward and recognition system. 

Some of the ways include:

Drive to Acquire

• Set clear with well-defined rewards for achieving them
• Train managers to recognize and reward positive behaviors aligned to performance
• Set high, yet realistic targets broken into sub-groups with awards for results
• Measure performance toward objectives and communicate progress to participants.
• Make recognition public where appropriate
• Provide rewards as close to achievement as possible
• Use spontaneous recognition spontaneous which is personal and heartfelt   
• Provide down time after long periods of extensive effort to achieve a goal
• Provide tangible rewards to supplement intangible recognition
• Provide group goals and celebrations

Drive to Bond

- Have employees create online profiles that are socially available for all to see

- Create randomized dyads of employees encouraging mutual-mentoring

- Ensure each instance of reward and recognition has a face-to-face element

Drive to Innovate

- Give all employees at least a small amount of time to innovate within their sphere of knowledge

- Ensure each instance of reward or recognition reinforces valued behavior 

- Encourage managers to have an “open door” to hear new ideas

Continue to encourage employees when an idea does not come to fruition

Drive to Defend

- Maintain openness and transparency in all communications regarding determination of all organizational incentive and rewards

- Gather employee input on incentive, reward, and recognition efforts to ensure they are perceived as fair

- Remind employees often of their importance to the organization’s mission

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net