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Rewarding Failure

6 July, 2020 by James Lawther 9 Comments

Should you reward success? Rewarding success is the obvious thing to do. Slaps on the back, public praise, bonuses and honours come easily to us. People expect to be rewarded for good performance.  If you reward success then people will strive to give you more of it. It would be madness to reward failure, or […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: beliefs, Bob Sutton, incentives, mixed messages, motivation, reinforcing behaviour, test and learn

Stopping the Suicidal

23 November, 2019 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Preventing bad behaviour From the start of the industrial revolution to the mid 20th century, we British have used town gas. It lit our streets, fired our boilers and cooked our roast dinners.  Town gas was a by-product of the coke manufacturing industry.  Heating coal in the absence of oxygen removes the impurities and produces […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: accident prevention, culture, error proofing, human nature, reinforcing behaviour

Outcome or Effort, Which Should You Reward?

7 June, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

You should praise your children Every parent will tell you that you should applaud your children.  Praising them for a job well done and telling them how clever they are builds confidence and self esteem. Or does it? In 1990’s Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck of Columbia University decided to find out. The experiment The […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: employee recognition, human resources, motivation, performance management, reinforcing behaviour

Cigarettes and Alcohol

10 May, 2019 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Prohibition Noun: The act of forbidding something, especially by law In 1919 the US government attempted to reduce levels of alcohol consumption.  They passed legislation that prohibited its production, transportation and sale.  The ban was almost complete, bar a few exceptions for religious and medical use.  During the 1920’s the U.S government spent about $220m […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: compliance, culture, human nature, management style, motivation, political intervention, reinforcing behaviour

Everybody Cheats

15 October, 2018 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Everybody Cheats

Who can you trust? When I was a small boy, the most exciting thing in the world was a day trip to London with my father.  I was brought up in a field in deepest Yorkshire.  The big smoke was amazing.  It had museums, skyscrapers, underground trains, toy shops, galleries and ice cream.  Best of […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: cheating, human nature, incentives, measurement, performance management, reinforcing behaviour, targets, trust

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