Positioning Systems Blog

The most powerful influence on human behavior discussed in our previous blog Recyclables Without Certain Consequences is PIC – Positive Immediate Consequence or a NIC – Negative Immediate Consequence. Aubrey Daniels asked us to look at the typical organizational consequences to help us see how businesses traditionally do business and why it has little effect on the behavior of our employees. If you understand that NIC and PIC are the most powerful and that PFU – Positive, Future, Uncertain or NFU – Negative, Future, Uncertain are the least powerful, then reviewing the following chart on these common organizational consequences will provide you with all you need to know why they don’t serve to motivate the behavior of your work force.

 

Nobody in our audience questioned Daniels on the fact that compensation in most cases can be considered certain. I’ve sent Aubrey a question on this. However, if you review the remaining on this list you can see that with a future and uncertain outcome none of these is reinforcing the behavior you want your employees to respond to. It’s no wonder that business fails to get performance when the reward is in the future and our people are uncertain of ever receiving it.

 

Daniels is a firm believer that business shouldn’t be [Practices #5] Rewarding Things a Dead Man Can Do and reducing the focus on [Practice #6] Salary and Hourly Pay. People respect most what they earn. If you’d like more background on this I strongly recommend picking up Oops and reading Practice #5 Rewarding Things a Dead Man Can Do and #6 Salary and Hourly Pay. 

 

I don’t want to pretend to you that I’m an expert in this area. Daniels is, and if you own a business I believe you should be paying more than just casual attention to his ideas on how to influence human behavior. As one of my clients pointed out after reading Oops, “I recognize now how important it is to be aware of what motivates my people. I need to realize that more goes into their interest and motivation to work than just compensation. The science of human behavior is something I need to learn much more about so I can make sure I am more responsible in achieving the performance I desire from my people.”

 

I recommend you subscribe to Aubrey Daniels blog to make learning human behavior an ongoing practice to help grow your business and your people.

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