Forgive me in advance as this is not a fully formed thought. But I’ve given myself five minutes to write and it’s important to me that I flex this muscle tonight. I’ve been letting goals like writing daily slip and I don’t feel good about it. So here we go.
How do you incentivize doing the right thing? It’s a very tough question. You can’t just not incentivize doing the wrong thing or just punish people for doing it either. That can breed resentment. Is public shaming the answer? It’s not the method I would choose. But what would I choose?
If I held all the power and got to decide how we reward people for good behavior what would that look like? Gift cards? Public accolades? A pat on the back? Hmm.
What makes me do the right thing? What makes me do the wrong thing?
I have high standards. Ok. I want to live up to my own expectations of myself. It feels shitty to do shitty things. But what’s the reward? Does there need to be one?
What makes me do the wrong thing? Anger. Resentment. Jealousy. Frustration. Definitely fear.
Maybe it’s less about incentives and more about creating a safe space for people to do the right thing and to learn from their mistakes. It’s not about rewards or kudos. People will do the right thing when the systems built around them allow them to do the right thing. People will do the wrong thing when those same systems are built to force them to do the wrong thing.
Focus on changing the systems. Not the incentives.
Times up. What do you think?
