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.
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