Incentive IntelligenceIncentive IntelligenceDiscussions on helping align individual and corporate goals through incentives, rewards and influence. Articles
Isn?t It Pretty?
2011-11-10 13:01:00 “It?s a mobile-enabled, social cloud-based SaaS system that will drive employee and channel engagement to levels not seen since the Roman Empire.” I know. You gotta have it right? But none of that matters. You can?t swing a cat without hitting a mobile-enabled recognition system. Or one that runs on the cloud or one ... More About: Business , Awards , Pretty , Employee
Rewarding White Space Activities
2011-11-07 13:51:00 Think about your organization chart. Little boxes each linking to other little boxes. Inside each box are specific activities. Inside the Accounting box debits and credits get processed. Invoices are drawn up. Bills are collected. Inside the Marketing box strategies are formed. HTML emails are designed and each. individual. word. is parsed and debated as ... More About: Space , Organization , Human Resources , Sales , White
Annual Incentive Programs Are Bad
2011-11-03 13:18:00 I was reminded by a post from Dr. Bret Simmons the other day that seeing meaningful progress is one of the most important things for maintaining engagement with employees. That made me thing of the ?typical? sales incentive program. The Dilbert Program Many incentive programs, especially for sales organizations, are designed to reward performance at ... More About: Business , Programs , Human Resources , Sales , Behavior
How Evil Are You?
2011-10-31 13:54:00 Appropriate Halloween post? Would you hurt someone just because someone in authority told you to? If you said no ? I?m guessing there?s a 70% chance you?re wrong. That?s roughly the result from an updated version of the Milgram Experiment that aired last night on the Discovery Channel for the show Curiosity. For those not ... More About: Authority , Evil , Recognition , Employee
YOU Are the Reason Your Recognition Program Failed
2011-10-28 13:29:00 On the internet no one knows you?re a dog. That now famous caption to a cartoon by Peter Steiner ran in the July issue of the New Yorker in 1993. Not much has changed in almost 20 years. You still need to know what you?re dealing with on the internet. The internet can be a ... More About: Human Resources , Employment , Reason , Program , Recognition
What the Girl Scouts Can Teach You About Innovation
2011-10-27 16:10:00 The Girl s Scouts will be 100 years old in March 2012. Their mission is: ??to empower girls and to help teach values such as honesty, fairness, courage, compassion, character, sisterhood, confidence, and citizenship through activities including camping, community service, learning first aid, and earning badges by acquiring other practical skills. Girl Scouts’ achievements are recognized ... More About: Change , Innovation , Employee , Influence
When Recognition Goes Bad
2011-10-25 13:32:00 Highlighting top performers is great. We all love getting the notoriety and the praise. It?s a great way for companies to reinforce their message, their mission, and their values. But, like anything else ? it?s a double-edged sword. But you don?t need to tell that to the folks in La Palma California. I?m sure, like ... More About: Human Resources , Recognition , Employee
Upending the Incentive Industry Business Model
2011-10-24 20:51:00 I?ve been looking at the incentive industry business model for quite a while. In fact, the reason we started I2I was to find a new way to make money by providing what our clients really, really want. Behavior change. The industry has been selling ?points? for years and they have become very adept at it. ... More About: Business , Awards , Industry , Human Resources , Model
Does Name Brand Merchandise Matter in Your Incentive Catalog?
2011-10-20 17:09:00 For years I drank the cool-aid with respect to the merchandise awards vs. cash battle royale. But now I?m a recovering incentive sales guy and understand that there is a time and place for both. It?s not an either or discussion ? it?s an ?and? discussion. It?s more about mix and management than about good ... More About: Awards , Merchandise , Matter , Catalog , Brand
New Book from I2I ? Manager?s Guide to Managing
2011-10-19 13:51:00 I wrote it myself. Hat Tip to Ron Swanson. Email/RSS subscribers click through for video. More About: Motivation , Manager , Book , Guide , Employee
Incentive Programs Are Your Worst First Option
2011-10-17 14:11:00 You?d think the title of this post would be the last thing you?re read on a site that focuses on how to design incentives correctly. You?d think I?d spend my time telling you about how incentives are great, how they can cure poverty and how they are better than the iPhone 4S. But I can?t. ... More About: Business , Awards , Programs , Human Resources , Change
Free Recognition Workshop ? Learning Should Be Your Main Job Function
2011-10-13 12:49:00 Say the next sentence like the Dos Equis guy — I don?t recommend companies for a fee. Our company works with clients helping them design incentive and reward strategies. We also work directly with incentive and recognition companies to help find new ideas and market better. We don?t get paid a referral fee or a ... More About: Workshop , Free , Main , Learning , Recognition
Branching Out ? Launching A New Biz ? LoyaltyShares LLC
2011-10-12 16:08:00 For 6 years almost I?ve been writing and talking and consulting about incentives and rewards. I?ve been the guy telling others what to do to influence behavior to drive business results. Well, today I become the guy that stops talking about it and starts doing it. Let Me ?Splain Lucy? For two years I?ve been ... More About: Change , Tech , Consumer , Influence , Loyalty
Next Week I?m At #SHRMATL11
2011-10-11 12:53:00 As many of you know ? I?m associated with a rag-tag group of folks called ?Fistful of Talent.? We try to find the edge of HR and then turn it up to 11. Seriously though, we are trying to bring new ideas to the HR space. One of the ways we may do that is ... More About: Week
My Warning About New Incentive Research Foundation Study
2011-10-10 12:49:00 The Incentive Research Foundation released a new survey/study about the use of incentives. Most of the data is pretty self explanatory. A ton of practitioners and clients will be using this information to help them design and launch incentive programs. A brief whitepaper can be had here and a full download of the survey is available ... More About: Business , Awards , Study
Incentives That Shouldn?t Work
2011-10-04 13:48:00 Two articles on incentive programs for students caught my eye this week. I?m always on the lookout for classroom-based incentives because a lot of research has been done on the impact of incentives on students and how they can diminish natural curiosity and dampen internal/intrinsic desires to learn and participate in learning activities. Alfie Kohn ... More About: Awards , Change , Work , Employee , Influence
I... Can't... Help... Myself... Aaaaargh!
2007-12-19 15:42:00 I've been looking for this and it finally showed up.... Tiny Bubbles...
Local Isn't Place-Based
2007-12-18 17:36:00 A recent article on Business Week Online was about appreciation and employee loyalty and the resulting customer loyalty. The article talked about Oprah Winfrey's favorite things, one of which is appreciation."Winfrey said that while material things are nice, the greatest gift you can give a person is to communicate how you feel about them." The article then goes on to say that good managers communicate their appreciation to their employees and that ... According to a Maritz Research poll of 1,300 full-time employees released in October, 2007, managers who are honest, caring, and generous do the best job in motivating employees to deliver great customer service and thereby increase customer loyalty. Researchers call this manager the 'caring mentor.' " Nice words... and common sense. I'm glad we have a survey to prove it and new buzzword to put into manager job descriptions. But I digress. My point of this post is to highlight a very important p... More About: Local , Place , Loca
The Oracle Speaks
2007-10-18 11:20:00 Sometimes it's just better to let someone else do your talking for you. And they say recognition is overrated. Only need to watch the first 60 seconds (but it's all good.) More About: Oracle , The O
What do you do when clients outgrow an industry?
2007-10-16 11:58:00 Each year in September the "incentive industry" has their biggest trade show of the year. Held in Chicago at the McCormick Center (for as long as I can remember), it theoretically covers everything that's fit to print about the incentive and motivation industry. I went last year and posted my thoughts here. Didn't go this year and it looks like I didn't miss anything. An article on the Manage Smarter website sums it up... "Motivation Show Slowdown." The gist of the article was the lack of attendance and the much smaller numbers of exhibitors. Here's my take (again without going) - the industry is still selling the "award." Whether that be merchandise or debit cards, or trips. The clients however are buying something else entirely. Client s are buying results - they are buying the connection between behavior and "the thing that influences that behavior." They are buying the thinking behind the designs... More About: Industry
On Aggregation
2007-10-11 12:41:00 For those of us who read blogs - and our numbers are growing, and for those of us who write blogs - and those numbers are growing, the issue of finding good stuff gets harder and harder. As Chris Anderson said in his book The Long Tail (blog here)-aggregation of information is the future. Sifting through the multitude of opinion and commentary in today's hyper-connected and increasingly user generated knowledge-base, is critical to finding the information you need to make your mark, make a difference and make a decision. Technorati tries to help by ranking via linkages to other blogs - similar to Google's algorithm. But those strategies are soulless. They merely tell you that things are connected not valuable. The human touch is needed. Kris Dunn at HRCapitalist fills that void for those of you searching for Human Resources resources. His newest HR Power Blog list is up on his site. Kris does the heavy lifting for you. Read... More About: Greg
Employee Reports - Five Stars?
2007-10-10 13:03:00 I am in the nexus of a business hurricane! Good stuff! I am never one to complain about helping clients and we are getting requests left and right. Nothing makes you appreciate success like success. However, this has caused me to curtail some of my normal blogging activity. So I'm being lazy today - just a note and a link to an interesting blog post. Alexander Kjerulf publishes the blog "Chief Happiness Officer" and he has a post on a new service/company called Revyr which is, in a nutshell, a site where employees can go to rate their workplaces. Potential employees can then see what a company is like before submitting a resume. I predicted this (shameless I know) about two years ago. When customers start rating products it was just a matter of time before employees started rating companies. Is this the start of a "consumer reports" for companies? Will your company get a five star rating? All you HR folks... More About: Stars , Employee , Ports
Good management advice from the wildest sources...
2007-10-05 10:33:00 I am a huge believer in following your strengths and putting failsafes in place to handle your shortcomings. In my professional life - anything I wasn't good at I'd find a way to outsource it. Whether that be hiring an assistant who complemented my strengths or offloading work to another department that had the competency to do what I couldn't (with a promise of reciprocity of course)- I try to eliminate my weaknesses. A great post from the most unlikely source - Scott Adams of Dilbert fame (subscribe to his blog - sometimes crude but always entertaining) - highlights how focusing on strengths really drives performance. He has a great example from when he took a Dale Carnegie public speaking class. I won't repost the entire post here but the gist of it is...the Dale Carnegie approach to teaching public speaking is to compliment the speaker for whatever he or she does well, and never mention any flaws. From the post by Scott:Most of my classmates in the Dale ... More About: Advice , Management , Good , Sources
The Difference Between Crazy and Driven
2007-10-04 11:14:00 Here's a riddle for you. What would cause someone to invest US$25 million to get a return of US$10 million? Sounds ridiculous. Who in their right mind would take this bet? A negative return of 60%? Well - it seems that a few would - and it has spawned a movement. I'm referring to the X Prize and it's derivatives. Originally established to spur entrepreneurs to develop a reusable vehicle that could fly to the edge of space twice within two weeks, it now includes a US$20 million payday for anyone who can put a robotic lander on the moon, take a spin across the lunar landscape, and beam back visuals - sponsored by Google. And The X Prize Foundation isn't the only one looking at contests as a way to spur innovation... Netflix Prize for building an algorithm that predicts movie preferences more accurately than current alternatives Amazon.com is offering the the Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge where you can win $100,000 in cash and AWS cre... More About: Crazy , Difference , Ween , Diff
The Difference Between Crazy and Driven
2007-10-04 11:14:00 Here's a riddle for you. What would cause someone to invest US$25 million to get a return of US$10 million? Sounds ridiculous. Who in their right mind would take this bet? A negative return of 60%? Well - it seems that a few would - and it has spawned a movement. I'm referring to the X Prize and it's derivatives. Originally established to spur entrepreneurs to develop a reusable vehicle that could fly to the edge of space twice within two weeks, it now includes a US$20 million payday for anyone who can put a robotic lander on the moon, take a spin across the lunar landscape, and beam back visuals - sponsored by Google. And The X Prize Foundation isn't the only one looking at contests as a way to spur innovation... Netflix Prize for building an algorithm that predicts movie preferences more accurately than current alternatives Amazon.com is offering the the Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge where you can win $100,000 in cash and AWS cre... More About: Crazy , Difference , Ween , Diff
Kid Nation Episode Two - Chicken Wars
2007-10-03 10:44:00 I posted last week about Kid Nation (new CBS reality show featuring kids without adult supervision developing a town from scratch in the "old west"). I think there are organizational dynamics from the show that can be applied to the "grown up" endeavors we face everyday in our work environments. From a motivation an influence perspective I think there is some real "gold in them thare hills." The core themes in this past week's episode were: to kill a chicken or not, ingenuity with a water pump, whether beauty queens should do dishes and would Greg get the gold star. I have three lessons from the show but first I have a general opinion on the show itself. Which came first... the chicken or the Greg? The main hubbub of this episode was whether the kids should kill a chicken for food. Talk about a ratings grabber - "See kids kill their own dinner!" I really think this tainted the rest of the series... More About: Episode , Wars , Chicken , Kid Nation
Kid Nation Episode Two - Chicken Wars
2007-10-03 10:44:00 I posted last week about Kid Nation (new CBS reality show featuring kids without adult supervision developing a town from scratch in the "old west"). I think there are organizational dynamics from the show that can be applied to the "grown up" endeavors we face everyday in our work environments. From a motivation an influence perspective I think there is some real "gold in them thare hills." The core themes in this past week's episode were: to kill a chicken or not, ingenuity with a water pump, whether beauty queens should do dishes and would Greg get the gold star. I have three lessons from the show but first I have a general opinion on the show itself. Which came first... the chicken or the Greg? The main hubbub of this episode was whether the kids should kill a chicken for food. Talk about a ratings grabber - "See kids kill their own dinner!" I really think this tainted the rest of the series... More About: Episode , Wars , Chicken , Kid Nation
Follow Up on Middle Ground
2007-10-02 11:16:00 I posted on September 26 about assigning percentage goals to your top performers and how that could actually "demotivate" and put undue burden on your best customers/sales people. In reviewing the post it seems that I left out some information - how do you make the program a bit more equitable for your top performers? Simple: Create your own performance index by multiplying the percent increase by the unit increase. The chart below illustrates this... In this instance, the lower volume Dealers have a much higher percentage goal than the top Dealers. You now have a way to rank performance that is more equitable than simply ranking by percentage growth or unit growth separately. Not perfect - but much better than just using one metric. More About: Ground , Middle
Follow Up on Middle Ground
More articles from this author:2007-10-02 11:16:00 I posted on September 26 about assigning percentage goals to your top performers and how that could actually "demotivate" and put undue burden on your best customers/sales people. In reviewing the post it seems that I left out some information - how do you make the program a bit more equitable for your top performers? Simple: Create your own performance index by multiplying the percent increase by the unit increase. The chart below illustrates this... In this instance, the lower volume Dealers have a much higher percentage goal than the top Dealers. You now have a way to rank performance that is more equitable than simply ranking by percentage growth or unit growth separately. Not perfect - but much better than just using one metric. More About: Ground , Middle 1, 2, 3, 4 |
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