Group/Individual Level

Facilitating structures - Reward systems and performance indicators

What is currently measured and rewarded?
One simple way to find out what is currently being rewarded in your company is to look at what behaviours are most common and what divisions or functional areas have the most power, the biggest budgets, etc. This is related to the topic cultural analysis. Within this context, you do not need any complex assessment process. Try to take an objective look at your people and work systems. What are the behaviours that are most common? What are the behaviours and accomplishments that are rewarded, both formally and informally?

Take a look at your internal and external measurement systems. The things you measure get attention. Do you measure inputs or outputs? In other words, are you more aware of how many hours people spend at work than you are of how much, and of what quality, people actually get done? Do you measure productivity or customer satisfaction?

There is nothing inherently right or wrong about any of these rewards or measures. The point is that you should align what you measure and reward with what you want people to be thinking about and doing. A necessary element in all collective behavioural change is reinforcement. Behaviour that is reinforced will be more likely to reoccur. This has been proven to work in the case of rats, children and it even works with people in organisational settings. You must continually and intelligently manage the consequences of behaviour to encourage people to continue to behave in new ways. If you reward and measure individual performance, for example, and you want to change to a team-based work environment, you had better change the reward and measurement structures to reinforce successful group-oriented behaviour and success.

There are several issues that become critical at this stage:

Early successes. If people attempt to change and those early attempts are failures or the successes go unnoticed, the change process will suffer. Early on, therefore, make sure people take on small projects with high likelihood of success and be sure to actively reward both success as well as effort.
Client and other performance feedback. Be sure to measure progress and to feedback results. Without baseline data, and subsequent information regarding progress, there is no way to modify effort, direct progress, or reward success. Be sure to see the topic of performance measurement for more on this.
Recognition and rewards. Most people will not do something for nothing, and those that do, will not do it for long. Remember that positive reinforcement can come in many forms besides money. Recognition, appreciation and acknowledgment are powerful motivators. Be sure to see the topic of rewards for more on this.

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