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Dealing with Unwanted Behavior
by
Charles Lamson
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Punishment and penalty decrease behavior (Figure 1). Punishment occurs when a behavior is followed by a consequence the performer does not want. Penalty occurs when a consequence valued by the performer is taken away. Punishment and penalty only stop or decrease behavior. Stopping an undesirable behavior does not mean that a desirable one will replace it. That is why many people who stop smoking will gain weight. Reducing one bad habit (smoking) may result in increasing another (overeating). Frequently, punishing one unsafe act results in the person doing another unsafe act. Stopping one quality shortcut results in finding another. This is simply because there are more wrong ways than correct ways to do almost everything.
Figure 1 The Four Behavioral Consequences and Their Effects
While effective in decreasing or eliminating behaviors, punishment, penalty, and extinction provide no new behaviors to replace the old, troublesome ones. To avoid the problem of replacing one bad habit or behavior with another, you can use either correcting or differential reinforcement techniques.
Correcting consists of punishing or penalizing undesirable behavior. Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) involves extinction of an undesired behavior and reinforcement of a desired alternative. In both of these examples, the focus is on building behavior and moving toward something positive, something to increase the opportunity for positive reinforcement in someone's life. We encourage that perspective whenever possible in managing performance.
Correcting
The only morally acceptable reason to use punishment or penalty in a business or in any other setting is to prevent harm to others and increase the person's future reinforcement. Therefore, if you use either, you must be prepared to reinforce a constructive alternative.
In common usage, the word punishment, has negative, emotional baggage because it so often refers to some physical act such as spanking a child or restricting movement, grounding a teenager, or putting a criminal in prison. None of these definitions are appropriate in the context of Performance Management..
Punishment in the context of behavior change, simply means any active consequence (the presentation of an aversive event) that reduces behavior. It could be a frown, disagreeing with someone's idea, a verbal reprimand, criticizing a presentation, or a million other aversive things that happen to people. Sometimes punishment is done deliberately; other times accidentally. In either case, if it results in a behavior or performance decrease, it is technically called punishment. Penalty would be a fine, demotion, or anything that restricts access to previously accessible or desirable activities.
Do not confuse punishment with a threat. Simply telling people they will be reprimanded is usually not punishment. It is simply an antecedent. Threats tell the person what the punishment will be, but threatening to punish seems to happen much more often than actual punishment. Some people threaten punishment all the time and never follow through. In such cases, the threat has practically no effect on the behavior in question.
The only way a threat can be considered a punisher is if it follows some undesirable behavior and decreases or stops that behavior. Suppose you catch someone in an unsafe act, and say, "If I catch you doing that again, you will be fired." If she never does it again, then the threat acted (technically) as a punisher for the unsafe act.
When to Correct Performance
Behavior must always be corrected in the following circumstances:
While these are not the only circumstances that indicate punishment or penalty, failure to use either when these do occur in a business situation can result in negative consequences for management and the organization. For example, if a supervisor sees someone doing something unsafe and says nothing and the person is injured later, the employee may bring legal action against the supervisor and the company for not taking the proper action to secure a safe workplace. Courts in these cases usually find for the employee.
It is fairly obvious to most people that you cannot ignore dangerous acts. If you see someone walk on a moving conveyor belt to avoid walking around it, and you know that several ankles have been broken in the past by such behavior, you cannot ignore that behavior. You must correct it every time it happens.
If you see someone lifting something in a manner that is likely to result in a back injury, you must correct the situation because it could pose a serious health risk to the person. If people are overexerting themselves, even to the ultimate benefit of the company, you must do something to stop it.
Judgments about unfair behaviors are generally more subjective than those about observable actions, but some are fairly clear. In this context, behavior that is unfair includes not only that directed toward other employees, but also toward customers and the company. Unfair would include any act of dishonesty such as lying, cheating, and stealing. Of course, most people do not have a problem understanding the necessity of applying punishment in these cases. But there are other cases in which people are unfair that are equally demanding of swift negative consequences.
For example, any act of discrimination should be dealt with immediately. Sexual harassment has received much attention in the workplace and rightly so. Such behavior can have serious consequences, not only to the person being harassed, but to the organization as well. When you have knowledge of this kind of behavior you must take immediate steps to prevent its future recurrence.
You must also correct undesirable or inappropriate behavior when you witness that behavior. For example, suppose you overhear an employee talking rudely to a customer or you bump into someone leaving work early without permission (and in both cases the person is aware you saw this behavior). You might think that if you do nothing the performance will not be repeated so you should not make a big deal of it. But in all of these cases, doing nothing is doing something. Your silence may be interpreted as your consent and consequently may act as an inadvertent reinforcer for the behavior you do not want. Even inappropriate behavior can be reinforced, so doing nothing allows that behavior to continue and even be strengthened.
*SOURCE: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: CHANGING BEHAVIOR THAT DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS, 4TH ED., 2004, AUBREY C. DANIELS & JAMES E. DANIELS, PGS. 253-256*
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