Hebert's Incentive Manifesto

Referencing Martin Luther and the The ClueTrain Manifesto, Paul Hebert of Incentive Intelligence offers us today the 9.5 Theses of his own Incentive Manifesto.  I particularly like Theses #5, which cleverly addresses one of my personal pet peeves:

5.  Hard measurement is required. Thou shalt not run a program with soft measurements and opinion as the only qualifier for awards. These are called popularity contests – not incentives or recognition. Save it for high school prom night.

Check out this solid advice, and share any thoughts (or suggested Theses) of your own with Paul.

Comments

[Wally Bock]

In the spirit of Martin Luther, who posted his theses as an invitation to debate, let me share two things I believe about incentive plans.

There is no perfect incentive plan. Every plan is unfair or unbalanced in some way.

Any incentive plan can be gamed. There are people who make it their life's work to game any and all systems the come in contact with.

[Ann Bares]

Wally:

Thanks for weighing in!

As to the existence of a perfect incentive plan, I am with you. The idea that we could perfectly and predictably influence the behaviors of human beings through any reward system would be delusional, at best. Sound incentive plan design should mean that we have carefully considered the situation and context, reflected on the potential consequences (desired and undesired) of the plan in question, and come to the informed conclusion that the good things we believe can come from the plan far outweigh any potential for negative impact.

And yes, it would seem that there are those for whom gaming the system is a life purpose. In my book, the question then becomes: Are these people the ones we want populating our organization?