Incentives Don’t Guarantee Performance – Energy Deficits

Many companies that run incentive programs expect the program will be the cure all for performance.  

It isn't.  

Sometimes you run an incentive program and you get nuthin'.  It happens.  Rarely is it the fault of the audience.  Almost always it's the sponsor's fault (psst – that's you by the way.)

Here are my top 5 reasons why you don't get results regardless of motivation or the incentives offered…

Energized Incompetence

Lack of skill – if your audience don't know how to do what you want they can't do it

Energized Ignorance

Lack of knowledge of what you want – if your audience don't know what you want they can't do it

Energized Chaos

Lack of alignment – if there are ten incentives all pushing in different directions your audience can't figure out which to do first or which to do at all

Energized Greed

If the program structure is too rich for the behavior required you will get huge effort but many unintended consequences – don't give people too much incentive for something – they will do it – any way they can

Energized Stupidity

See above – improperly structured, incentives can make people do stupid things

Your job is to make sure you don't do these things.  Check your training.  Check your communication.  Check what else is going on.  Check your structure.

There are no guarantees but properly designed you can avoid these five major incentive program problems.  I'm betting you have at least one of them.