Jerry Maguire Shoulda Seen it Coming

In the 1996 movie with Tom Cruise, Jerry Maguire has a moral break with
his employer and strikes out on his own as a sports agent.  Trying to
sign the hottest quarterback around he shakes hands with the boy’s
father who says "my word is stronger than oak."  Fast-forward and the
father signs a contract with Bob Sugar – Jerry’s past friend and fellow
sports agent.

Now, I’m sure you’re asking – what’s that got to do with influencing behavior and driving performance?  Well – as it turns out – quite a bit.

Two very powerful psychological influencers are commitment and
consistency.  Both of which were missing in the Jerry Maguire scenario,
and missing in most incentive and rewards programs.  Both of these
principles of influence should always be part of an incentive activity
to really drive results.  Awards alone cannot do what a combination of
influence principles can do.  So how should these principles be applied?

First of all, commitment is the public acceptance of a goal or
behavior.  Getting your participants to commit to a goal creates a
desire to fulfill that commitment.  Key to this step is the "public"
part.  Even though the father "committed" with his stronger than oak statement – it wasn’t public. 

Consistency is the desire to remain consistent with past behavior.
No one likes to be wrong – especially when you’re wrong compared to
yourself.  If you’ve done it before – you’ll more likely to do it again
in order to remain consistent with past behavior.  Showing your
participants past behavior is likely to create a very strong desire to
continue with that behavior.  If they’ve participated in programs in
the past – show them that.  If they’ve been successful in other
activities similar to what you’re planning, show them how they
performed. 

Combining these principles and adding reinforcement will jump-start any initiative.

Next time you’re looking to influence behavior, try to:

• Get historical performance information on the audience.  Show them what they’ve done in the past.
• Set up a list of goals they can commit to.  Smaller ones first,
  larger ones later on.  People are more likely to commit to easy
  things.  Yet as you raise the bar, their desire to remain consistent
  with past behavior will influence them to accept the higher goals.
  Don’t ask for commitment for all goals up front – one at a time as they
  are achieved.
• Make the goals specific and make them commit in public – either in a group or via a signed "Pledge to Perform".
• Continually show them progress toward goals.  Make it obvious.

Many times, this simple process is all that is needed to change a
behavior.  However, I do recommend some award be attached in order to
create an emotional link to the activity that is harder to forget and
reminds the participant of the success they’ve had.

So what should Jerry have done?  If I were consulting with Jerry I’d say…

• Get the Dad to commit to small things like visits with potential endorsement clients before signing.
• Get commitment on some of the items that will eventually make it
  into the contract.  In other words – "if we sign, can we agree on
  ….?"  This starts the process of commitment.
• Get the father to commit to the "process" – not a contract but the
  process that leads to a contract.  Remember, behaviors drive results.
  Getting the father to commit to the process makes it harder to renege
  on the deal later.
• Make sure there are other people around when discussing these steps – needs to be public.
• And finally – GET THE CONTRACT YOU DOPE!  (that’s just me speaking, but hey… that was pretty obvious.)

Some folks say – "well duh – that’s just common sense."  Maybe – but
common sense isn’t always that common, and now you have the ammunition
to say to the boss that these steps are based on proven psychological
principles and need to be included in your program.