The Chemistry of Praise
According to research by Gallup, employees tend to receive very little praise from their supervisors. In fact, less than a third of U.S. workers would strongly agree that a boss has praised their work in the past week. Why are leaders so stingy with the compliments? One excuse I frequently hear from managers is that recognizing employees for doing a good job is an ongoing burden.
In other words, once you start praising people, they expect you to praise them again and again.
Well, there is some truth to that assertion. As it happens, our brains produce a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical that stimulates the part of the brain that processes rewards and creates feelings of pride, satisfaction, and happiness. Receiving positive recognition for our efforts releases dopamine in our brains and makes us feel good about ourselves.
While employees might not understand the chemistry of dopamine, they learn to associate praise with pleasure. In turn, they correlate pleasure with hard work. As a result, they do additional good work in hopes of receiving more praise.
But the benefits of dopamine are short-lived. As the effects wear off, we need another dose to maintain the upbeat feelings. Otherwise, we come down from the dopamine high and feel frustrated and unappreciated. And that's why employees continuously need praise.
Our craving for dopamine is biological, so our pursuit of it is natural. That knowledge can change the perceived burden of praising your employees into a simple recipe for increasing productivity. 
Labels: employees, leadership, management, praise, recognition
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usThe Trouble With Discipline: Part II
"Our system was failing to meet its most basic responsibility: the development of productive and well-disciplined individuals." Dick Grote, Discipline Without Punishment
In the early 1970s, a troublesome mystery befuddled the executives of Frito-Lay. Abruptly one day, complaint letters from outraged customers began arriving at the company's headquarters. Angry writers reported the same upsetting experience: each had been shocked to discover, on a Frito-Lay potato chip, an obscene message written in felt-tip pen.
Having traced the source of the offensive chips to a particular plant, management dispatched training and development manager Dick Grote to the facility with instructions to track down the culprit responsible for the vulgar messages. What Grote found instead was a workplace culture that bred disobedience.
Grote learned that plant managers had fired fifty-eight of the factory's 210 employees for disciplinary reasons in the prior nine months. Supervisors were misusing progressive discipline -- verbal and written warnings, unpaid suspensions, and terminations -- as a way to rid the plant of unwanted workers. The excessive firings resulted in dismal morale and led disgruntled employees to sabotage the company's products.
The sheer volume of disciplinary actions at the plant allowed Grote to spot what is less obvious in most organizations; that is, that traditional progressive-discipline methods are highly ineffective.
In his book, Discipline Without Punishment, Grote writes, "The problem wasn't the way we were administering the system. The problem was the system itself." Like discipline systems at most companies, Frito-Lay's offered employees no way to redeem themselves. Says Grote, "Virtually every employee who received a verbal warning received a written warning; almost everyone who reached the point of a disciplinary suspension was fired not long after." So he decided to change the system.
While keeping the progressive characteristic of the system, Grote eliminated punishment and replaced it with personal responsibility and decision-making. Warnings and reprimands became reminders -- coaching sessions in which employees are asked to take responsibility for their actions and commit to changing their undesirable behaviors. Unpaid suspensions became paid leaves during which employees can reflect on the seriousness of the problem -- without the resentment and financial hardships caused by withholding pay.
Over the next two years, the number of terminations resulting from disciplinary actions at the plant fell from 58 to two. Thousands of organizations have since followed Frito-Lay's approach with staggering results. In addition to firing fewer employees, these companies are also experiencing lower voluntary turnover, reductions in sick-leave usage, and drops in worker grievances.
"The basic premise of the traditional discipline system is that crime must be followed by punishment," writes Grote. With that in mind, too many organizations treat all of their employees like criminals.
So, is it time to overhaul your disciplinary system?
Labels: discipline, employees, leadership, management
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The Trouble With Discipline: Part I
"Perhaps one of the most prevalent errors is based on the idea that discipline is punishment." Robert Bacal, "Five Sins of Discipline"
Many years ago, I had to confront an employee about her recurring tardiness problem. It wasn't my first disciplinary conversation; over time, I'd dealt with everything from below-standard work performance to blatant theft, and I had developed a thick skin for the task. Nevertheless, in this case I was reluctant to have the necessary conversation.
You see, unlike most workers who are never on time, this woman was a valued employee. Despite her tardiness, she was uncommonly efficient and displayed remarkable personal initiative. What's more, she always tried to make up for being tardy by staying late. But I was duty bound to explain our expectation of punctuality; after all, her coworkers were arriving at work on time. So, notwithstanding my thick skin, I had wrestled with my unease long enough.
As it turned out, a chronic health issue was causing her morning tardiness. Learning the source of her lateness enabled me to provide a more flexible work schedule and help a good employee. My hesitation to address the problem had only prolonged resolving it. What took me so long?
On the whole, leaders associate discipline with punishment. In that sense, we think of discipline as something unpleasant we must do to an employee, rather than a process of resolving a problem with an employee. In fact, the widely used progressive discipline model is meant to correct employee behavior by doling out increasingly severe penalties. Verbal warnings are followed by written warnings. Then comes a final warning, or even a suspension. Finally, the employee is fired. Since meting out punishment in this fashion involves adversarial conflict, it's no wonder we tend to put off discipline as long as possible.
Whether they hope to avoid conflict or because they simply dread the process, the truth is that many managers don't earnestly begin discipline until they've already decided to fire the employee. And then it's not done to improve the employee's behavior, but to build a legally defensible case for termination.
However, Dick Grote, author of the book, Discipline Without Punishment, points out what most leaders overlook. "Termination is not the final step of the discipline system," says Grote. "More accurately, termination represents the failure of the discipline system."
Grote's point suggests that a change in mindset is necessary. The purpose of discipline should not be to punish people, but to help them alter undesirable behavior. Done correctly, it provides workers meaningful information about their current performance, attendance, or conduct, while helping them establish a plan for correcting mistakes. From that perspective, discipline is similar to coaching and should be a positive experience. But only if you keep punishment out of the mix.
Not only does punishment cause anxiety in the leaders who must inflict it, but it is also ineffective. In his article titled "Five Sins of Discipline," author and consultant Robert Bacal explains that punishment is meaningless unless employees (a) value what we take away from them; (b) believe that the penalty fairly fits the crime; and (c) respect the manager's right to issue the sentence. If all three conditions are not met, employees will resent the punishment. And the resulting side effects -- employee antagonism, indifference, and dissatisfaction -- can prove more disruptive than the original behavior.
If you associate discipline with punishment, you're undoubtedly frustrated with the results of your disciplinary efforts. Or else you're avoiding the process completely. Perhaps it's time to try a better approach.
Labels: discipline, employees, leadership, management
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Author George Brymer's comments about the leaders who get it, and those who never will.
