What Motivates Employees More: Rewards or Punishments?

The 18th-century polymath Jeremy Bentham once wrote, “Pain and pleasure govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think.” Modern neuroscience strongly supports Bentham’s intuition. The brain’s limbic system, which is important for emotion and motivation, projects to the rest of the brain, influencing every aspect of our being, from our ability to learn, to the people we befriend, to the decisions we make.

It is not surprising, then, that when we attempt to motivate people, we try to elicit an anticipation of pleasure by promising rewards (for example, a bonus, a promotion, positive feedback, public recognition), or we try to warn of the pain of punishment (a demotion, negative feedback, public humiliation). But what’s not always clear is: Which should we be using — the promise of carrots or the threat of sticks? And when?

A study conducted at a New York state hospital provides some answers. The goal of the study was to increase the frequency by which medical staff washed their hands, as sanitization in medical settings is extremely important for preventing the spread of disease. The medical staff is repeatedly made aware of this, and warning signs about the consequences of unsanitized hands are often placed alongside sanitization gel dispensers. Yet cameras installed to monitor every sink and hand sanitizer dispenser in the hospital’s intensive care unit revealed that only 10% of medical staff sanitized their hands before and after entering a patient’s room. This was despite the fact that the employees knew they were being recorded.

Then an intervention was introduced: An electronic board was placed in the hallway of the unit that gave employees instant feedback. Every time they washed their hands the board displayed a positive message (such as “Good job!”) and the current shift’s hand-hygiene score would go up. Compliance rates rose sharply and reached almost 90% within four weeks, a result that was replicatedin another division in the hospital.

Why did this intervention work so well? The answer provides a general lesson that goes beyond hand washing.

The brilliance of the electronic board was that, instead of using the threat of spreading disease, the common approach in this situation, the researchers chose a positive strategy. Every time a staff member washed their hands, they received immediate positive feedback. Positive feedback triggers a reward signal in the brain, reinforcing the action that caused it, and making it more likely to be repeated in the future.

But why would inconsequential positive feedback be a stronger motivator than the possibility of spreading disease? This may seem odd, but it fits well with what we know about the human brain.

Neuroscience suggests that when it comes to motivating action (for example, getting people to work longer hours or producing star reports), rewards may be more effective than punishments. And the inverse is true when trying to deter people from acting (for example, discouraging people from sharing privileged information or using the organization’s resources for private purposes) — in this case, punishments are more effective. The reason relates to the characteristics of the world we live in.

To reap rewards in life, whether it is a piece of cherry pie, a loved one, or a promotion, we usually need to act, to approach. So our brain has evolved to accommodate an environment in which often the best way to gain rewards is to take action. When we expect something good, our brain initiates a “go” signal. This signal is triggered by dopaminergic neurons deep in the mid-brain that move up through the brain to the motor cortex, which controls action.

In contrast, to avoid bad things — poison, deep waters, untrustworthy people — we usually simply need to stay put, to not reach out. So our brain has evolved to accommodate an environment in which often (though not always) the best way to not get hurt is to avoid action altogether. When we anticipate something bad, our brain triggers a “no go” signal. These signals also originate in the mid-brain and move up to the cortex, but unlike “go” signals, they inhibit action, sometimes causing us to freeze altogether. (Even in situations where real danger is imminent, the freeze response often precedes the fight-or-flight response that may follow it, like a deer in the headlights.)

This asymmetry partially explains why electronic positive feedback was more successful at motivating the medical staff to wash their hands than the threat of illness to themselves and others. There are a number of other reasons too, such as social incentives, that I uncovered when researching and writing my book.

Other work demonstrates how we are biologically wired such that anticipating rewards elicits action. In an experiment led by neuroscientist Marc Guitart-Masip, which I and others collaborated on, we found that volunteers were quicker to press a button (that is, to act) when we offered them a dollar (anticipating a reward) than they were to press a button to avoid losing a dollar (anticipating punishment). However, they did a better job when they were asked not to press buttons (to not act) to avoid losing a dollar than they did when we offered them a dollar in return. In the latter case they sometimes instinctively pressed the button.

While we should be cautious translating such basic research to real-world situations, it would seem that creating positive anticipation in others (perhaps with a weekly acknowledgment of the most productive employee on the company website) may be more effective at motivating action than threatening poor performance with a demotion or pay cut. Fear and anxiety can cause us to withdraw and give up rather than take action and improve. In line with this notion, studies have shown that giving people small monetary rewards for exercising or eating healthily was more effective at changing behavior than warning of obesity and disease.

There is another reason why warnings often have limited impact. Our researchhas shown that the brain encodes positive information (such as learning that the likelihood of obesity is lower than previously thought) better than negative information (such as learning it is higher). In fact, people often assume negative information is unrelated to them, but view positive information as very much relevant, which generates an optimistic outlook.

When we notice others making suboptimal decisions, we automatically fast forward in our heads and visualize their failure, leading us to warn them about the devastation we envision. But what the research here suggests is that we need to consciously overcome our habit of trying to scare people into action, and instead highlight the rewards that come with reaching our goals.

Source: HBR  26 Sep, 2017

Handling Negative Emotions in a Way that’s Good for Your Team

It’s normal to experience emotions at work: frustration, anger, fear, excitement. But how leaders handle these feelings can go a long way toward building — or destroying — a strong workplace climate and motivating — or discouraging — employees. It’s essential that leaders develop the ability to regulate their emotions, but perhaps not in the way you might think.

Take this scenario: A soccer team is playing in a critical game and is down by one goal. Just before half-time, a player gets fouled in the box and the team is given a penalty kick — a great opportunity to tie up the score. A leading player on the team steps up to take the shot. At first, it appears perfect as it soars to the corner of the net but instead it rebounds off the goalpost back towards the stunned player. Head in his hands, he walks off the field to meet his team for their half-time meeting.

The team is upset. The coach is too. The coach’s goal is to get the players over this hump, ready to return to the field feeling pumped and motivated. Should he master his frustration, put on a fake smile, and not discuss the incident? Or should he be honest and fully express his feelings? Which one of these is going to help him meet his goal?

Neither, it turns out.

Leaders Who Regulate Well, Do Well

Research on emotional regulation suggests that the coach’s ability to manage his emotions will determine team morale and motivation. Of all of the facets of emotional intelligence, emotion regulation may be the “master skill,” explains Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of the book, Permission to Feel.

But how a leader manages emotions is critical in determining whether the outcome for the team will be positive or negative. Research has found that people tend to regulate their emotions in one of two ways: suppression or reappraisal.

Suppression is what most people do: hide their feelings and pretend not to feel upset. While this is a popular strategy, it actually leads to a host of negative outcomes for the person: fewer close relationships, more negative emotions, less social support, lower satisfaction with life, poorer memory, and elevated blood pressure. In addition, research has shown that suppressing emotions elevates other people’s stress response. If the coach hides his anger, for example, the blood pressure of those on his team is likely to rise. They may not consciously know that he is angry since he doesn’t appear to be, but they are physiologically registering this inauthenticity and it is setting off an alarm.

Given the negative impacts of suppression, you might think that fully expressing our emotions may be a more effective strategy. Doing so, however, could also have destructive consequences. If the coach fully expressed the frustration he was feeling in the moment, he probably would have destroyed the confidence of his players. Instead of inspiring connection and motivation, he would likely leave the players feeling fearful and dejected.

Reappraisal, or reassessing an emotional situation, may be the most effective strategy in this situation. For example, the coach could remind himself that “the game is only over when it’s over”; that this is just one game in the season. There will be other opportunities for his team to shine. Reappraisal helps him calm down. As a consequence, he might perceive that the players were already disappointed and that, instead of more dejection, they need encouragement. He may start the meeting acknowledging everyone’s disappointment but emphasizing that the outcome of this setback depends on the players’ determination to master this challenge and turn the game around for the next 45 minutes.

The results are better for the coach and his team members.

We recently conducted a study with 15 varsity coaches and their athletes. Coaches who tended to reappraise more often experienced less negative emotions overall than coaches who tended to suppress their emotions. In addition, the reappraising coaches had more positive team climates, characterized by trust, communication, and motivation.

Leadership research supports these findings, showing that emotion regulation is a key competence demonstrated by successful leaders, not just athletic coaches. This is connected to the fact that one of the benchmarks of a strong leader is the ability to both manage and influence the emotional states of those they work with. Leaders must be able to inspire and instill confidence in their followers to help them maintain motivation and cope in the face of difficulty. To be effective at this complicated task, they must be able to regulate their own feelings effectively.

The potential benefits of reappraisal are supported by research on leader-follower interactions. One study found that leaders who used reappraisal rather than suppression when delivering bad news were better able to help their followers manage their anger responses. The followers of leaders who used suppression in this paradigm expressed more anger and reported negative attitudes towards their leaders.

Exercise Your Reappraisal Muscle

Reappraisal can seem difficult to do during times of crisis. Here’s a quick research-backed technique that can help you do so: Think about the problem as a challenge rather than as a threat. Mounting evidence indicates that appraising problems as a challenge — rather than as a threat — helps people concentrate on the task at hand and consider the steps they have to take to succeed. A challenge frame builds resilience in the face of stress.

In contrast, perceiving a problem as a threat has been linked to decreased performance and motivation as well as to increased stress levels.

When your own stress levels are high, “a fast way to regain your cool so you can reappraise is through deep breathing,” explains Johann Berlin, CEO of TLEX Institute. “By teaching executives how to manage themselves through something as easy as breathing, you can make an enormous difference to their teams.” Research shows that you can rapidly calm your emotions using just your breath. Inhales increase your heart rate and blood pressure while exhales slow them down. An easy exercise you can do even in the middle of a meeting is to breathe out for twice as long as you inhale. If you have a little more time, try this exercise which takes you through a specific breathing practice that can calm you down quickly.

So how can you be best prepared for high-stake situations when you’ll most need to regulate? Practice these exercises in low-stake situations. Practice them daily. You’ll be well versed when things get stressful.

Source: HBR June 11, 2019

Creativity starts from BELIEF... and Success comes from ACTION.

Today I will post about animation which is made by Adcom.. this is truely great video, and for you people who always doubt in yourself, don't doubt it but just take the action, we'll never know the result until we try it. Just believe in yourself ...

To live a life of high achievement, you must fully believe in yourself and your ability, and pursue what you believe in. 

Find me an extremely successful person who doesn’t greatly believe in themselves. It’s not going to happen. Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Jr., Michael Jordan, Elon Musk and Mark Cuban are just a few highly successful individuals who benefited greatly from this confidence. However, it’s not their levels of success that I want to talk about. It’s their willingness to get up again and again when they failed or experienced a setback while in pursuit of creating the life of their dreams.

If you don’t have a huge amount of belief in yourself, then there is no way you can expect anyone else to believe in you. If you are an employee, you can’t expect your boss to fully believe in you if you don’t even believe in yourself. If you are an entrepreneur, you can’t expect an investor to believe in your ideas if you don’t even believe in yourself.

The men and women that change the world all understand the incredible power of belief.

Success is measure in action not by the wealth...
Success is made not come itself to us. 
So go out there and take action... :)