Increase Incentive Program Results by Putting a Face to It?

In all the years I’ve run incentive and reward programs, reviewed them for clients or just heard about them from friends and family I’ve never seen a program that was “owned” by an individual.  Almost every incentive program is run by the “company” or the “department.”

Other than an introductory letter from the titular head of the group whose budget is funding the program it is pretty much an “organizational” program.  No real person is associated with it.  

When programs are announced there are usually flashy emails or print “announcements” highlighting the rules, the awards, the fine print, but no real connection to a person.  

The only real exception to this is the “President’s Club” type program run by the organization for the top recognition honor in a company.  But other than the initial appeal or announcement by the real President – all communications comes from the “program.”

I’m thinking that your incentive program could be much more effective if you put a name and a face to the program.  

If a Face Increases Donations Could a Face Increase Performance?

Wikipedia is looking for money.  The free, crowd-sourced encyclopedia and the defacto standard source for all college term papers and blogs is on its annual funding drive – looking for money to keep the service going.  They really don’t want to go with advertising in order to avoid the problem (real or imaginary) of people thinking the site could be corrupted by advertisers putting pressure on the type, tone and content.  They are doing it in Public Television fashion – they’re asking for donations.

I saw a tweet or feed the other day asking if the banner ads at the top of Wikipedia entries with Jimmy Wales’ picture and a personal appeal were effective.  A quick bit of research (via Wikipedia of course) and the surprising (or not surprising) result is… immensely so.

In fact the banner ads with Jimmy Wales’ mug are by far more effective than any other banner format.  The results on their banner testing efforts are here but for those that want the quick answer – overall they state that the “Jimmy” appeals have a 3% click-through rate and a much higher donation level.  

I just checked the results of the October 26 test and the “Jimmy” appeal was almost 16 times more productive than the next highest donation total ($50K to $3K.) Because of those results Wikipedia may allow individual editors to create their own personal appeal banners in hopes that their face will also help with the money flow.  

The bottom line is this – adding a person (whether it is just Jimmy or if the other editors faces will have the same effect is yet to be seen) increases the amount of the behavior Wikipedia wants – clicks and donations.

Would this work for you and why would it?

It is rare that we ever do A/B testing with incentive programs – something that should be done somewhere, somehow – so we probably will never see a head-to-head comparison of different theories of performance incentives to really know what works better or worse.  But I think that including a person as an “owner” of any incentive program will increase the results of the program.

My logic runs this way…

Programs that have an “owner” add a social layer to the program.  Any program that is sponsored by a department or group or the company stays in the realm of “transactional.”  Participants who don’t perform aren't hurting “anyone” – just the “company.”  However, adding a person as an owner changes the relationship from the impersonal to the personal.  Now there is a real person who the participant is either helping, or, letting down.  This would be especially effective if the “owner” was well-known, popular, and an authority.  I’d also amp up the request a bit and have them ask for specific commitments and goals.  

By adding an owner – a face – to the program means the participant is now working to help achieve someone else’s and their own goals.  

They aren't working for “the man” as much as they are working for “that man” or “that woman” as the case may be.  

Adding a person to the mix allows you to take advantage of social psychology – and leverage those influence techniques.  I’ve not seen any research on it but I’d hazard a guess that the same social psychology levers that are so effective when used by individuals are not as productive when they are wielded by “companies” or “departments.”

Social psychology works because it is, well, social.

Influencing behavior has always been about more than the rewards.  Influencing behavior in a way that engages and drives a connection with participants needs to include something other than the points, credits, dollar signs. 

It needs a face.  

It needs to connect personally – not just financially.  

Thoughts, ideas?  Hit me in the comments.  Love to hear your point of view on this.