Performance Management: Changing Behavior That Drives Organizational Effectiveness (part 11)

Why Are Punishment and Penalty So Popular?

by

Charles Lamson

Given that most people do not like to give or receive punishers and penalties, you would think those consequences would rarely be used. Yet daily examples of punitive techniques exist in almost every work environment. Why do we so often resort to these methods to solve a problem? The answer lies, of course, in the consequences to the person using them.

When you use punishment, if it is going to work, it will work right away. That is, the behavior that you do not want will stop, at least temporarily. If the behavior stops, that is what you wanted. In other words, the use of punishment is reinforced. The person punishing receives a PIC for using punishment. This is called the punishment trap. Having received a PIC (positive, immediate, and certain reinforcer) for punishing, the probability increases that you will use punishment in the same or similar circumstances. By contrast, when you reinforce, you rarely see immediate results.

When you reprimand those who are doing something wrong, they will usually stop immediately. If you reinforce someone who has corrected some inappropriate behavior, you will usually have to wait at least for a short period of time to see if the reinforcer worked. This is why many people mistakenly think punishment is more effective than reinforcement in solving problems.

Punishment is reinforcing to the one punishing, not only because it works but because you do not have to deliver punishers and penalties as often as you must deliver reinforcers. With punishment, you can just sit back in your office and wait for problems to be brought to you. This is called management by exception. When people do something wrong, go out and let them have it; any other time, ignore them. People do not foul up as often as they perform adequately. So a good deal of your time can be devoted to other things, like solving the problems generated by the negative side effects of using punishment. This is called crisis management. The crisis manager never runs out of work.

One key point about punishment is that behavior often stops only in the presence of the punisher, unless the punishment is severe. Punishment that is so severe that it completely eliminates a behavior is almost always corporal in nature and so strong that it cannot be used at work. Severe punishment has severe side effects. It can increase the likelihood of aggressive responses from the one being punished or penalized and thus the need on the part of the one doing the punishing to continuously increase the intensity and/or frequency of the punishment. Workplace violence can be the product of this cycle of punishment and aggressive response if it increases in frequency or intensity. That kind of one-sided correction process sets up no real opportunity to learn and the person doing the punishing becomes a punishing stimulus just by showing up. Managers, parents, or others who rely on punishment and penalty may never realize how they are robbing themselves of the pleasure of being a positive force in others' lives.

Many managers realize the shortcomings of punitive consequences but do not know how they would solve their problems if they decreased its use. They will likely continue to use punishers and penalties but will do it more and enjoy it less. A manager who retired from a maintenance superintendent's job at an auto plant said in a speech to new supervisors, "In my 35 years in this plant I can remember the names of about 50 people who were really no-good. They continually caused problems. I can remember about 10 who were really outstanding. But the thing that bothers me is that I cannot remember the names of the hundreds of people who helped me be successful during my career here. I hope you don't retire with that burden on your conscious as I have." He further stated that if he had it to do over again, he would concentrate on making sure that he showed proper appreciation to the people who had helped him be successful.

When people experience success with positive reinforcement, they often make dramatic changes in the long-standing patterns of relating to people on the job. One supervisor, after learning PM (Performance Management) methods, withdrew her retirement papers because she had started to enjoy rather than dread her job. A retired safety manager, who returned to participate in auditing safe behavior in a PM safety program, remarked that he was well-liked for the first time in his career because his presence now signaled positive reinforcement rather than punishment.

*SOURCE: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: CHANGING BEHAVIOR THAT DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS, 4TH ED., 2004, AUBREY C. DANIELS & JAMES E. DANIELS, PGS. 91-92*

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Analysis of the Sociologically Examined Life (part 5) 03/10 by CharlesXLamson | Current Events

Analysis of the Sociologically Examined Life (part 5) 03/10 by CharlesXLamson | Current Events: 'I had the good fortune to be able to take a course with Margaret Mead. I had a fabulous art course, where it was explained to me that nothing exists in a vacuum, that everything is a result of the period in which it's done - the economics, the sociology, the politics, all sewn together. That was a very important lesson.' -Iris Apfel

Performance Management: Changing Behavior That Drives Organizational Effectiveness (part 10)

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Consequences That Decrease Behavior: Punishers and Penalties

by

Charles Lamson

Punishers and penalties are everyday occurrences for everyone. We recoil in pain when we touch a surface that is very hot or very cold. We cut our fingers or hit them with a hammer when repairing things. We fall, pinch our fingers, and bump our heads. We lose money in vending machines. We are fined for speeding and charged late fees for not paying a bill on time. Because punishment is so pervasive in everyday life, it is difficult to imagine a world without it. However, we do not like to think of punishment as a necessary component of the workplace.

Unfortunately, behaviors that are illegal, immoral, unethical, unhealthy, unsafe, and unfair do occur in the workplace. These behaviors can have devastating effects on an organization and must be stopped. Therefore, we change punishers and penalties as the most expedient consequences for quickly stopping behaviors in the workplace that are dangerous and/or demoralizing.

Punishers

A punisher (P+) is defined as any consequence that follows a behavior that causes a reduction in the frequency of that behavior. This definition is similar to that of positive reinforcement. A positive reinforcer is any consequence that follows a behavior that results in an increase in the frequency of the behavior. Both consequences require an active response from the environment. With positive reinforcers the person receives something that he/she values. With punishers the person receives something that he/she does not like. That means in this context that punishers, as reinforcers are defined not by what the consequence is, but by what the consequence does to the behavior. One could not say that spanking a child or chewing out a performer is a punisher. They would be punishers only if they reduced the occurrence of the behaviors. We cannot make a list of punishers. We can only make a list of things that are potential punishers. Punishers at work can be as mild as being told no or as intense as being fired.

It is important to note that punishment never solves a business problem. Punishment merely stops behavior temporarily. No organization accomplishes its mission by stopping people from doing things. Any police force that sees its mission as stopping crime will never run out of criminals to catch. It has often been said that prisons are graduate schools for criminals, where they learn how to break the law and not get caught. Having stopped a criminal act, something must be done to increase the probability that lawful behavior will take its place. Only one consequence can do that - positive reinforcement. Unfortunately, our criminal justice system is slow to learn this lesson.

The advantage punishment offers is that when the behavior that we do not want has stopped, we have an opportunity to replace it with more appropriate productive behavior - a job for R+ (positive reinforcement). Think about that carefully. If you punish one behavior, consider what you want instead. Use that moment, or another time closely associated with the punished behavior, to introduce either the directions for behavior you want or the opportunity to reinforce what you see that you like. Stop behavior you do not want, while setting up conditions for other behavior. If every time you punish, you provide opportunity for potential, you will become a generalized reinforcer in spite of the fact that you occasionally punish or correct undesirable performance.

Penalties

The difference between a penalty (P-) and a punisher (P+), is that with a penalty, engaging in a behavior causes the performer to lose something of value. We generally think of penalties as fines or losses of privileges, but these would be penalties only if they reduced the behavior. A $1,000 fine for some outrageous behavior committed by a professional athlete who makes $10 million a year probably has little if any effect on his behavior; but, for a person making $30,000 a year, such a fine may have a tremendous effect. An executive discovered the only consequence for express lane driving was a $100 fine with no points toward losing his driver license and said, "Then I'll pay $100 a month to drive in the express lane." He figured that the odds of getting caught and fined were about 1 to 30. To him, losing the money was not a penalty; it was the cost of a permit.

Cost cutting in companies almost always involves penalties for performers. Most financial experts do not understand the negative effect that this has on performance. At a time when discretionary performance is needed, management action creates the opposite effect. A better action would be to set new contingencies for earning benefits. The contingency might be to earn the benefit by finding ways to cut expenses in amounts greater than the cost of the benefit. Under this condition, people can get increased benefits even during tough economic times.

Because penalties usually have a very low response cost for the one imposing the penalty, they are used frequently. This can be dangerous because when performers get to the point that they have nothing more to lose, the consequence becomes ineffective.

In a large number of families, penalty is the most frequent consequence used by parents. Misbehavior results in loss of TV, family car use, telephone, and freedom to go places and visit friends. In this regard, the weekly allowance is more often than not a penalty system. The child is given money at the beginning of the week and misbehavior results in losing money. It is no wonder that children raised under these conditions often drop out of normal society and look down their noses at material culture. Their experience is that if you want something, people use it to control you. If you have something, someone can take it away from you. If you do not want to have anything of value, you are free from control, particularly from authority figures.

While punishment and penalty are necessary on occasion, frequent use of either almost always indicates a lack of understanding behavior and how to manage it effectively. In an effectively managed organization, the use of punishers and penalties should almost never be necessary. Someone's understanding of how to maximize human potential can be readily gauged by observing their use of these consequences. We also know that organizations pay a high cost for allowing punitive management behavior. Punishers and penalties suppress not only the punished behavior, but can also have the correlated effect of creating employees who are overtly cautious and who have high levels of distrust, fear, and anger. Nevertheless, many people use punitive methods more easily than positive ones in organizations and in life in general. Why is this so? The answer is in the next post, entitled, Why Are Punishment and Penalty So Popular?

*SOURCE: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: CHANGING BEHAVIOR THAT DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS, 4TH ED., 2004, AUBREY C. DANIELS & JAMES E. DANIELS, PGS. 89-91*

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Analysis of the Sociologically Examined Life (part 4) 03/09 by CharlesXLamson | Art

Analysis of the Sociologically Examined Life (part 4) 03/09 by CharlesXLamson | Art: 'That's what hip-hop is: It's sociology and English put to a beat, you know.' -Talib Kweli

Performance Management: Changing Behavior That Drives Organizational Effectiveness (part 9)

Maintaining Performance Improvement: Schedules of Reinforcement (part B)
by
Charles Lamson

Fixed Ratio

Fixed ratio (FR) refers to a set number of responses that must be made before reinforcement is received. Two common examples in the work setting are piecework and commissions. On piecework, employees are paid a given amount for each item or set of items they produce. Programmers may be paid by the job, not by the hours they work on it. Salespeople on commission may be paid a certain amount for each sale they make. In the average workplace, formal applications of fixed ratio schedules are hard to find because they are more difficult to track and generally require more monitoring and individual schedules. Nevertheless, employees on FR pay systems consistently outperform those on FI (fixed interval) by as much as 30 percent. Allyson & Kolko (1982) in a survey of studies on this subject state:

A host of experimental work from both analogue and actual work tasks consistently points to the relative superiority of a payment system based on a specific piece-rate requirement (p. 46).

More recently in a review of studies about method of pay and performance, Bucklin and Dickinson (2002) state:

Taken together the data suggest that, at least for the parameters investigated to date, the most critical determinant of performance is the ratio schedule contingency between performance and pay; that is, a relationship in which individuals can earn a specified amount of money for the number of work units they complete (p. 46).

Fixed ratio (FR) schedules are often written as FR2, FR6, FR8, and so on. The number after the designation denotes how much behavior is required to receive reinforcement. For example, a child who must complete six pages of homework before going out to play would be on an FR6 schedule.

Most applications of the Premack Principle employ FR schedules: When I do X, then I will do Y. When I complete this tedious task, I will spend an hour on a fun task. This is a very effective time-management technique. When your mother told you to do your work before your play, she was trying to teach you the value of FR schedules. Fixed ratio schedules are associated with task orientation and efficiency. This schedule is ideal for business. An increasing number of companies are moving to pay for performance in recognition of the superiority of FR over traditional interval-based pay schedules. However, we might add that many of the so-called pay for performance schemes are conceived and implemented without knowledge of schedules of reinforcement research and as such fail to deliver the performance of which they are capable.

A characteristic usually associated with FR schedules is a pause in performance following reinforcement. This pause is called a post-reinforcement pause (PRP). A post-reinforcement pause is found in both FR and FI (Fixed interval refers to a schedule of reinforcement used within operant conditioning. ... So, a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement happens when some sort of reinforcement occurs after a set amount of time and impacts behavior.)schedules because in these intermittent schedules, reinforcement never follows reinforcement. In other words, a behavior immediately following reinforcement will never be reinforced on FI and FR schedules. On FI schedules some time must pass before reinforcement is available and on FR schedules, more than one response must occur before reinforcement is available.

The difference in the PRP on an FR schedule is that when the pause is over, the person goes all out. Fixed ratio performance is sometimes referred to as all-or-nothing performance. Of course, on fixed interval schedules, the person may only need to make one response at the end of the pause to produce the reinforcer.

The length of the pause on an FR schedule is a function of the size of the ratio, just as the length of the pause on an FI schedule is a function of the length of the pause on an FI schedule is a function of the length of the interval. On a given performance there would be a longer pause on FR100 than there would be on FR10. This phenomenon can be seen when people working on a project day and night for several weeks take a couple of days off when it is completed. Writers, directors, and others who work on long-term projects may take weeks, months, or even years before starting another. One way of characterizing the PRP is as a celebration of the accomplishment. Organizations that take time to celebrate accomplishments are usually high performing organizations.

If managers do not know about this characteristic of FR, they may get an unrealistic picture of the performers. If they happen to inspect during a PRP, they might conclude that their employees are lazy or off task, when in reality they may be just the opposite. Many mangers think that taking time to celebrate is a waste because it takes time that could otherwise be spent working. However, they discover that when victories or accomplishments are celebrated, people work harder to get the celebration and work harder following the celebration than they would have done without it.

Although FI schedules also produce a pause following reinforcement, that pause differs in character from the FR pause. On FI schedules, the performer is waiting for the next occasion for reinforcement since there is nothing he can do to rush the reinforcer. On FR schedules, the performers might be said to be resting before beginning again, or even celebrating the previous accomplishment; but in any case, the performer knows that the sooner he starts again, the sooner reinforcement will occur.

*SOURCE: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: CHANGING BEHAVIOR THAT DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS, 4TH ED., 2004, PGS. 85-87*

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Analysis of the Sociologically Examined Life (part 3) 03/07 by CharlesXLamson | Art

Analysis of the Sociologically Examined Life (part 3) 03/07 by CharlesXLamson | Art: 'The function of sociology, as of every science, is to reveal that which is hidden.' -Pierre Bourdieu Part 1: The Secret Destiny of America Part 2: The Sociologically Examined Life

Daily Catholic Mass - 2019-03-06 - Fr. Joseph

Performance Management: Changing Behavior That Drives Organizational Effectiveness (part 8)

Maintaining Performance Improvement: Schedules of Reinforcement

by

Charles Lamson

Interval schedules

1. Fixed interval

A fixed interval (FI) schedule is one in which a fixed amount of time must pass before a given behavior will be reinforced. There are two criteria for reinforcements on a fixed interval (FI) schedule. First, some period of time must go by before a reinforcer is delivered; and second, at the end of this period, the desired behavior must occur to produce the reinforcer.

Suppose you work in an area that is inspected for housekeeping on the last day of every month. The reinforcement may be positive in that you will be praised if it is good, or it may be negative in that the best you can hope for is to avoid a chewing out. The consequences will be delivered for having a clean area on that day. It does not matter whether you kept your area clean or messy during all the preceding days of the month. Reinforcement is available only on the last day.

Because it is a monthly inspection, the performance (housekeeping) will never be reinforced (inspected) during the interval no matter how often you do it - only at the end of the interval. But keep in mind that on interval schedules, reinforcement is not automatically given at the end of the interval. The performance must first occur. In this case, the place must be clean.

On an FI schedule, responding immediately after is never reinforced. This usually produces a distinctive performance pattern. Behavior under FI schedules is highly predictable. In the early part of the interval, the behavior increases, often dramatically.

This pattern, referred to as break and run, is generated because the response rate usually drops to zero following reinforcement but accelerates as the end of the interval approaches. This happens because behavior occurring immediately after reinforcement is never reinforced on an FI schedule and time discrimination is learned so that the performers can approximate when the end of the interval is near.

Figure 1 is a list of examples of FI schedules in everyday life.

Figure 1 Examples of Fixed Interval Schedules

2. Variable interval

A variable interval (VI) schedule is one in which the time between the opportunities for reinforcement varies. For example, the first time reinforcement is available may be after 1 hour, the next time may be 3 1/2 hours later, then again 22 minutes later, and finally, after only 8 more minutes. In this example, on the average, reinforcement is available every 75 minutes (VI 75), but the times it is actually available vary greatly. In other words, the performer never knows exactly when his behavior will be reinforced.

As with FI, the behavior must be occurring when reinforcement becomes available in order to get the reinforcer. Because the performer cannot predict whether any given response will be reinforced. VI offers a different performance pattern than FI.

On VI schedules, in contrast to FI schedules, reinforcement can follow reinforcement, therefore, reinforcers can be delivered close in time to each other. The behavior can be reinforced at any time, even if it was reinforced only minutes or seconds before. If the performer repeats the desired behavior, that behavior may or may not be reinforced, but he does not have to wait until a set period of time has elapsed as with FI schedules. A VI schedule produces a low-to-moderate, but very steady response rate.

VI schedules generate response rates exemplified by something like listening to the radio for your favorite songs to be played. You constantly monitor what is being played because you never know when you might hear an old favorite. Since on any VI schedule, the longer you wait the higher the probability of reinforcement, these schedules tend to produce patience. The result is clearly seen in those who fish off the end of a pier at the seashore. They never get in a hurry and are content to stay there for long periods of time, waiting for the fish to bite.

A nurse who checks the bulletin board to see the new work schedule also demonstrates an example of a VI schedule. Suppose the nursing supervisor posts the schedule at various times during the week, depending on her workload. The behavior being reinforced in this case is checking the bulletin board. The reinforcer is seeing her work schedule. No matter how frequently the nurse checks the board, the schedule will not be posted until the supervisor has completed it. In other words, the behavior of checking the bulletin board does not cause the work schedule to be posted. Throughout the week, the nurse will check the board from time to time because experience tells her sooner or later it will be posted.

Even though VI produces a relatively low rate of behavior, since it produces steady or regular responding, it is the most appropriate schedule for many jobs. For example, consider the case of a security guard patrolling an area. Her performance consists of physically checking various points along the route to make sure doors are locked, windows are latched, and lights are turned on or off as appropriate. We want her to ride or walk slowly through all the areas under surveillance. One of the primary values in her performance is to let any would-be intruders know that the area is always patrolled. We do not want her to hurry through the checkpoints.

We certainly do not want her to take a break after each patrol, and then rush through the round and complete the next one on time. That is, of course, what an FI schedule would produce. If she were required to make one check every hour, that is exactly the kind of performance you would predict. But on the proper VI schedule, where finding something wrong is the positive reinforcer, she would slowly and methodically go through her checkpoints and on returning to the security office, do any paperwork and resume her rounds. The chance of catching someone doing something wrong is increased by being in the area when someone attempts to steal, et cetera. Therefore, she maximizes her chances by spending time checking.

Variable interval schedules are appropriate for any job where patience or vigilance are more important than speed. In an age where more and more jobs require people to monitor TV or computer screens to detect certain errors or events, knowledge of how to properly apply VI schedules is important.

Figure 2 shows some examples of behaviors that are usually on VI schedules.

Examples of Variable Interval Schedules

*PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: CHANGING BEHAVIOR THAT DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS, 4TH ED., 2004, AUBREY C. DANIELS & JAMES E. DANIELS, PGS. 81-84*

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Analysis of the Sociologically Examined Life - The Beginning 03/04 by CharlesXLamson | Art

Analysis of the Sociologically Examined Life - The Beginning 03/04 by CharlesXLamson | Art: 'Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics. But, clearly, there are scientific truths to be known about how we can flourish in this world. Wherever we can have an impact on the well-being of others, questions of morality apply.' -Sam Harris 1st half: Where the Esoteric Meets the Exoteric - Part 1 of Analysis of Manly P. Hall's The Secret Destiny of America 2nd half: Where the Exoteric Meets the Esoteric - The Sociologically Examined Life Analyzed (part 1)

Performance Management: Changing Behavior That Drives Organizational Effectiveness (part 7)

The Value of Intermittent Reinforcement

by

Charles Lamson

A reinforcer is a stimulus (such as a reward or the removal of an electric shock) that increases the probability of a desired response in operant conditioning by being applied or effected following the desired response. Common sense tells us that if people receive reinforcers every time they do something, they will maximize their efforts. If you knew that every time you performed a certain way, you would get something you want, wouldn't you work your hardest? If you answered yes, common sense would have led you astray.

The answer to this question, believe it or not, is no. Once the basic performance has been well established, intermittent reinforcement generates higher levels of performance than continuous reinforcement.

There are at least four advantages to intermittent reinforcement.

1. Intermittent Reinforcement Maintains Performance

If you have a reinforcer and deliver it effectively, performance will usually change rapidly. Your goals will be reached and often exceeded in less time than you ever imagined. Maintaining this performance gain in the ensuing months and years requires intermittent reinforcement. What could make a fisherman spend hours sitting nearly motionless, holding on to a pole with a piece of string dangling in the water? For simplicity, let's regard the behavior as fishing and the reinforcer as catching a fish. Examine the following sequence of events.

On the first few fishing trips, a young fisherman is successful, he catches fish each trip. After several successful trips, he goes on a trip where he catches no fish. Will he go again? Probably. Suppose on his next trip he is successful again, but on the next two trips he is unsuccessful. Will he go again? Probably.

With this kind of reinforcement history, he will most likely continue fishing for a long time even though he will have occasional trips when the fish aren't biting. His experience has taught him that if he does not catch fish on one trip, he might catch fish the next time out. His performance will probably be maintained despite failure because catching fish is on an intermittent schedule of reinforcement.

Some hunters hunt all season without killing a deer. Football fans continue to go to games in spite of their favorite team's long losing streaks. Many golfers have vowed to quit the game during a bad round, only to change their minds after hitting their best drive ever on the last hole. Millions of people buy tickets to the state lotteries every week but rarely win. Many writers persist in writing in the face of numerous rejections. Thomas Edison was reputed to have said that he discovered 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb before he found a way that worked. Examples of this kind of motivation are endless. You might say that a history of intermittent reinforcement gives people hope.

People do, however, give up on projects and lose interest in hobbies and activities. If reinforcement does not reach some minimum level, extinction will occur (Extinction refers to a procedure in which reinforcement of a previously reinforced operant performance is discontinued. When a previously conditioned performance is extinguished (no longer reinforced), it generally occurs initially with a high frequency and then falls continuously until its rate reaches near zero.). However, intermittent schedules produce behavior that is relatively resistant to extinction.

To help people develop a habit that is resistant to extinction, the behavior must get high levels of reinforcement early in the learning stage. If that is done, the habits can be maintained with relatively little reinforcement.

The advantage that intermittent reinforcement provides for organizations is that it permits employees to maintain high levels of performance under limited supervision. Salespeople working away from the office for extended periods of time, long-distance truck drivers, service technicians, security guards, night-shift employees, auditors, entrepreneurs, and consultants are a few of the jobs that must be established on intermittent schedules for best performance. An additional advantage of intermittent schedules is that they allow a manager to be away from the office for a long time and not have decreases in performance due to lack of social reinforcement. The advantage that intermittent reinforcement has for individuals is that you can't just pat someone on the head and forget about him. Some reinforcement is required on a continual basis. In other words, don't take high performance for granted. Managers frequently ask, "How long do I have to reinforce behaviors?" The answer is as long as you want that behavior to continue.

2. Intermittent reinforcement avoids the problem of satiation.

Reinforcers lose their effectiveness if they are used too often. We all experience this condition when we tire of a particular food or dessert because we have had it too frequently within a short period of time. It happens with clothes, with activities, and can occur with practically all reinforcers. Satiation is especially likely when the selection of tangibles is limited. How many logo pens, key chains, or coffee mugs do you really need? Using tangibles only occasionally will sustain their reinforcing properties for a longer period of time. Reinforcement on an intermittent schedule and using a variety of social and tangible reinforcers maximizes effectiveness.

3. Intermittent reinforcement frees managers to reinforce many different behaviors and performances.

Managers are responsible for numerous performers and their many behaviors. Reinforcing all of the behaviors on a continuous schedule is impossible. There simply is not enough time. Intermittent reinforcement makes reinforcing the behavior of many individual performers possible. Often, in organizations using Performance Management, managers or supervisors have five or more performance improvement plans under way at the same time. This is possible because as the demand for reinforcement decreases on one project, another can be started.

4. Intermittent reinforcement explains why some people seem to perform without reinforcement.

You may occasionally encounter a situation where people perform at a high level apparently in the absence of positive reinforcement. To the skeptic, this apparent exception proves that reinforcement is useful only for some problems and for some people.

Consider the star performers who are constantly prompt, efficient, and productive. In watching them perform over extended periods of time, you may not witness any positive reinforcement. In response to surveys, they may not recall receiving any reinforcement. But a long time ago, most likely when they were children, their parents probably gave them attention for achievements and for learning new tasks. Or, perhaps as new employees, they were fortunate enough to receive a good bit of reinforcement. As they learned the job, their supervisor or trainer may have given considerable reinforcement as they made progress.

After awhile, as a natural course of events, the supervisor began to reinforce their performance less and less often as they became more and more proficient in the job. By that time, even if new supervisors took over, an occasional comment about their work would be all it took to keep performance at a high level. Now, years later, they seem to work independently of reinforcement. In reality, they can sustain high performance on a very lean schedule of reinforcement because of a rich reinforcement history.

People who respond with high levels of behavior, even with little reinforcement in the present, can do so because of their reinforcement history. These people are typically referred to as self-motivated, inner-driven, or self-starters. And you will discover, even these people need reinforcers on some schedule.

Eisenberger (1992) in a series of studies investigating what he called learned industriousness found that people with a history of reinforcement for extra effort, generated not only a high rate of performance on the reinforced tasks but approached other tasks with the same high effort. This same history also produced performers who were more persistent, who tolerated aversive tasks better, and who were more honest than those with a history of continuous reinforcement.

*SOURCE: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: CHANGING BEHAVIOR THAT DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS, 4TH ED., 2004, AUBREY C. DANIELS & JAMES E. DANIELS  PGS. 77-80*

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Organizational Communication for Survival: An Analysis (part 6) 03/01 by CharlesXLamson | Management

Organizational Communication for Survival: An Analysis (part 6) 03/01 by CharlesXLamson | Management: 'Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.' -Jim Rohn 1st half: The Esoteric - Manly P. Hall's Analysis of Albert Pike's Morals and Dogma 2nd half: The Exoteric - Analysis of Organizational Communication for Survival