I2I - Incentive Intelligence

Hypocrisy Thy Name is Social Media, Fast Company – and oh yeah, incentive sales people…

I’m reading my tweet stream and my heart starts beating a bit faster.  

Not because someone I respect and follow has posted a new idea.  

Not because someone I respect and follow has issued a pithy sound-bite that really got me thinking. 

Not because @BARACKOBAMA just DM’d me and asked for my advice on how to influence the Senate/House or even influence Ms. POTUS (which I could do BTW.)

My heart beats a bit faster because someone I have followed and respected as a sane voice of social media lied to me and deceived me.  

And it’s happening to many of you as well.  

Some of you know it but don’t care.  

Many of you however are blind to it, and in fact have been pulled into its undertow and now follow blindly along with the hypocrisy.  

It’s those that know it but don’t care that have me roiling.

It’s About Conversation not Followers

To those of you who I thought “got it” – you definitely got it and are all full of it.  Crap that is.  Not smarts.

All you social media “gurus”, who  signed up for the influence project and bill yourself as a voice of expertise in the social media sphere are as bad as the snake oil salesmen of the early 1900’s.

How can someone preach conversation, community, connections and then fall for what is a scam at best and downright duplicitous behavior at worst.  (If you get a link to someone in the project the site immediate get’s you to register – or tries to intimate that is how you can “see” who’s influential)?  

How could you?

And you  get others to pimp you out in twitter?  Have you no shame?

To what end would you, Mr./Ms. social media guru use this new-found “influence?”  To pump up yourself, your blog, your practice?  I’m betting yes.  

So this isn't really about conversation, community or connections is it?  

It’s really about commerce.  

It’s about making a buck and getting your name on some list that hopefully drives some revenue – (probably in the 30 silver shekel range I’m guessing.)

So – you tell your clients – “it’s not about followers – it’s about conversation” – yet you can’t wait to follow Fast Company into the eight or ninth circle of hell and get your name listed as an influencer?  

You’re kidding me right?

Full Disclosure

I’m registered on the site.  I did it “by accident.”  Truly I did.  A friend on twitter shot out a link and I followed it.  I thought I had to register to see what the site was about and viola – I’m now a member of the great unwashed.  Sorry – but I’m not putting my link the post.  Check out the intro page (no mention of how to review the project without registering is there?)

I wish I could take it back.

Unfollow Follow Up

So here’s what I’m doing with it.  I’m going to go Full-Metal Fast Company Unfollow  (maybe using #FMFCU as the hashtag as I go through it.)

One the list is out – I’m going to find it, compare it to the list of folks I follow and if someone is on the list and they are a “guru/expert/agency - shoot, bang they are unfollowed immediately.  

My logic is this… I wouldn’t associate with a known hypocrite in my real world life so I’m not doing it in my virtual one.

I do feel sorry for some of my friends out there that got sucked into it by accident.  For you – I may make allowances – either directly letting you know or bending my rules.  Heck – everyone needs a second chance.  That’s what relationships are about – both real and virtual.

Bringing It Back Home

So… how does this relate to incentives and rewards?  

Simple – any sales person who talks about driving behaviors, increasing engagement and helping drive business results – but will only help you if you include merchandise, travel or gift cards reside in the same hell as the SM experts on the Fast Company Project.

Don’t be fooled by sales people who talk about engaging your participants and then recommend a merchandise laden program.  Don’t fall for the hypocrisy of selling “engagement” and “behavior change” – they are selling awards.  

At least buy from someone who tells you the truth.  If a sales person comes in and says “I help you fulfill awards in a well-designed incentive program quickly, cost-effectively and ethically” – buy from them.  They are the real deal and someone you should hang with.

If they tell you it’s about community, conversation and connection – and they sign up for the Fast Company Influence Project – they’re hypocrites – oh wait – that’s all you social media folks.  

Sorry – got ya mixed up there.  Oh well – 6 of one – half dozen of the other.

Social Media/Networks – I Just Can’t Quit You – But I Do Need a Break

I Love Social Media

I do love it.  It has brought me business, friends, acquaintances, information and ideas.  Social media has allowed me to think differently – it has changed some opinions, created a few and reinforced many.  But I think I’ve moved past the infatuation stage and into the real, more mature, “love” stage. 

Social media used me.  And I allowed it to happen.  I welcomed it and enjoyed it.  But no more.

Like any relationship, at the beginning you’re awash in the euphoria of endorphins with little intellectual involvement.  Let’s face it – if relationships led with logic the species would have died out many eons ago.  That little chemically-driven stutter at the beginning of every relationship gets us past the negatives and firmly invests us in the new person – or in this case – the new technology and (gasp – should I say it?) the new normal.  We need to be blinded for a while in order to get involved.

Unfortunately, like our real-life relationships - we don’t stay in our drugged state forever.  We slowly begin to come out of the endorphin rush and one day we wake up and wonder who really is in our technology bed.  I’m at that point now.  I love you social media – but I’m not “in” love with you.

It’s Not You. It’s Me

And to make matters even worse – my love affair – like yours - is a multi-partner gig.  It’s not just me and one – or even me and a few – it’s me and a TON of other people.  It's not like it was in the beginning.  When we were all early adopters we were all happy, shiny people enjoying new-found connections.  Everyone basked in the coolness of being in front.  And that fed the euphoria.  I confess I was one of those.

But… others are joining the group – and they are starting where I was.  They are the blind and the happy – and I am now jaded and bothered.  My social network relationships aren't in synch anymore.

It’s my problem.  I’m not in the same place as SM today - and I shouldn’t hold that against anyone who is just now jumping in.  I just wish I’d have known that I would have drifted apart when I started down this road.  And for those of you jumping in - this will be you some day too.

Each of the networks I am involved with has changed.  I’ve changed.  I just didn’t realize how much these changes would impact my feelings about social media/networking (are those really interchangeable?  I don’t think so but most folks do.)

LinkedIn, Twitter and Blogs, Oh My

I’m not blaming anyone in particular.  It’s just the way things go.  My feelings about the different networks are my feelings – you may feel different.  But as of this writing – Linkedin, Twitter, and blogging are on my “social media break” list.

Linkedin was a nice little site that allowed all of us to inflate our credentials and connect to other people who were too polite to point out our title/role/impact inflation – and we kept our mouths shut about theirs as well.  It was a nice little place for “business” relationships to start.  Over time they added a few little widgets that allowed us to round out our online persona.  That was nice.  Employers, employees, recruiters, job-seekers, sales folks, buyers, etc. could get a nice picture of you and your capabilities.

Then it became a race.  Link envy took over and the number of connections became the goal – not the value of them.

The next big step was groups.  Initially a good idea and I’m sure there are many Linkedin groups that foster a great exchange of ideas and information and add value to the individuals associated with them.  However, I’m seeing more and more groups become seething pits of self-promotion and spam.  Some of the new changes for Linkedin groups, like eliminating the “news” section, has made it even more difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Groups are almost useless unless continually moderated with an iron fist.

Talking about about wheat and chaff –Twitter.  

When it was new it was very cool.  It was the center table in the high school cafeteria.  But like Linkedin before it, the currency of influence isn’t content or real connections any more – it’s followers – and following.  And the recent FastCompany stunt on influence hasn’t helped any.  It’s just made it worse.  (What did our parents do to us to make us need, demand and require this much validation?)

Don’t get me wrong - there are great conversations going on within Twitter.  There is always the top part of the normal distribution where value resides.  Unfortunately, the distribution for twitter is getting very, very wide – and the value is now only at the very tippy-tippy end of the tail.  The average tweeter hasn’t a clue how to best leverage it and it makes it harder to find the real value.

As an example – I follow @chrisbrogan (who has about 150,000 followers – props man.)  Every day I’ll get about 100 RTs of Chris Brogan’s tweets.  Does the person with only 400 followers really think they have more reach than Chris Brogan?  Isn’t it entirely more likely that their 400 followers probably already follow Chris Brogan and their addition to the tweet stream has 0 marginal value?  And to simply retweet Chris Brogan with nothing added – no comment, no witty rejoinder, no nothing = no value.  

And while I’m at it… please – stop RT-ing Seth Godin – anyone in business that’s been alive for more than 10 years either follows him on Twitter, subscribes to his blog or doesn’t really give a crap about his daily brain droppings.  If you’re following me – and I’m following you – chances are we’re pretty much like each other and anything you follow I follow too.  

It’s the weird stuff I want – not the popular stuff.  RT the blog I don’t know about – not the one that’s featured in Time Magazine or the Wall Street Journal.  This is my fault too… I need to find weirder people to follow.  I only need a few folks that think like me – the rest should be wildly different.

And speaking of blogs…

The common wisdom on the web is that everyone should blog.  Here’s a piece of advice …. No they shouldn’t.  

Fueled by twitter tons of new blogs are clouding up the blogosphere.  It’s harder than ever to find good, quality content.  Techonorati used to be helpful but that ship sailed.  I’m not here to tell you whether you should blog or not but here’s a clue: If there is even a question in your mind about whether you should blog – don’t.  Only blog if you would do it under threat of being fired or sued.  That’s when you’ll know you have the passion and point of view to create quality posts and be in it for the long-run.  And for Pete’s sake – write about something interesting – not just what is already available in the normal news media.  Put a spin on it… be funny, be sad, be mean… be something.

So What Does This All Mean? – It Means It’s All My Fault

Social media/networks are good.  I love them.  But it does mean I need to go “on a break.”  I need to start over.  Now that I know what I’m dealing with I can set up my monitoring and usage of social media to eliminate the things that have made me sour recently.  I might even date around - but remember - we're on a break!

1. First– Linkedin… going to quit a lot of groups.  Going to start contributing more and call BS on those that don’t or those that abuse.
    
2. Second– Twitter… going to be unfollowing like a mad-man over the next few days.  Then I’m going to set up my tweet deck so I can find the pony in the pile.  
    
3. Third– blogs – going to be pulling some RSS feeds off my reader.  One great post every other month isn’t going to do it for me anymore.  I’ll be starring stuff in Google Reader and I’ll be checking every week to see who didn’t get a star – then you’re on my “cut” list.
   
   

I do love you Social Media – I can’t just quit you – but I can take back control.  

I know I’ll miss that random rush when the tweet stream refreshes.  I know I’ll worry that I’ll miss that one post that will change my life or the tweet that will let me know that @scobleizer has a new camera or how I can whiten my teeth.  But I’ll survive.  I’ll probably lose a few friends here and there –but my sanity is important and right now social networks and social media is slowly eroding it with top ten lists, praise of twitter and the endless quotations from Einstein.  

BTW – for those of you who do send out a lot of quotations – no one appreciates them - but your followers are too polite to tell you.

Enough of the Platitudes – Answer the Rest of the Question (Social Media Rant Alert)

Paul Harvey had a popular radio broadcast back in the day.  I used to listen to it on WLW out of Cincinnati.  His unique voice and speaking style earned him quite a following.  He was probably best known for his interesting and quirky stories that usually began with:  

“You know what the news is, in a minute, you're going to hear... the rest of the story."

To paraphrase and twist that famous line...

"You know the platitudes… but I doubt you’ll hear the rest of the story.”

Are We Entering the Age of Deep Thoughts and Shallow Actions?

Twitter has taught me is there is no drought of platitudes, quotes, pithy sayings and deep thoughts.  Blogs (including this one at times) are overflowing with big ideas, lengthy prose and well-constructed sentences about strategery.  Mainstream journalism is filled with interviews with big thinkers and wonderful accolades for leaders who have “vision.”  Business books now follow a familiar formula, chapter by chapter – start with a story, add facts, add two images, close by connecting story to your point of view and ask a question.

It seems to me that with all of our social media and traditional media all we get now is an ongoing stream of quick quotes hoping to elicit that famous stoner response – “Wow man, that’s deep.”

But no one wants to address the rest of the question…

Examples:  Searching SHRM Tweets

To pick an area I have some familiarity with I chose “employee engagement.”  Doing a quick twitter search for “SHRM10” and employee engagement I pulled a this sample of tweets:

• Employee engagement is the holy Grail! Trust, pride in corporate symbol, opportunity/well being=3 main drivers
• Massive collaboration to initiate and integrate sustainability. Direct employee engagement at innovation rather than competition
• Al Gore at #SHRM10 "employee retention and engagement key to future of business”
• The number one engagement factor for employees is that "senior management cares about me as a person".
• Cross departmental teamwork is critical to overall engagement.
• Leaders must have a compelling, positive vision with clear goals to build engagement
• engagement requires commitment
• competence, engagement, and now contribution of heart and minds key to talent mngt.

You get the idea.  So based on this information I now know…

• Pay attention to your employees.
• Teamwork is important to getting work done.
• Engagement is important for business.
• Leaders must have a vision and clear goals.

Is this new to anyone out there?  I’m guessing no.  

Knowledge Is Good

I saw that quote on the bottom of the statue at the beginning of the Oscar worthy movie Animal House.  At the time I think I was the only one in the theater that laughed but it has stuck with me until today.  Too me, that statement sums up a lot of what I'm seeing in all the media - but more so in social media.

I think many of us (and now there are many more due to social media) think it is more fun (and pseudo-productive) to tweet and say and blog platitudes than to really answer the tough questions.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that telling someone “engagement requires commitment" is like saying people need air.  I get it that – now tell me how to DO it.  

Maybe, like me, they don’t want to give away their secrets – after all the “how” to do something is much more valuable than the “what to do” – especially if the “what” is something that we know intuitively, has been proven to work, and has been a staple of good businesses for many, many years.

I just find it interesting that there seems to be so much value in big picture statements that really don’t get us anywhere.

Are the rest of you feeling the same way?  Are we too focused on sounding smart versus acting smart?

And is social media creating the opportunity for this?

Or is that just a deep thought with no action?  I’m thinking it is.  Oh well.  Gotta go tweet that.

Responding to the Assault on Incentives

As we move more decidedly away the “industrial” economy where value and worth was determined by the statistics from the factory floor into the “knowledge” or “creative” economy where true value is added by people and their unique abilities to solve problems, tackle opportunities and create new markets; understanding why people behave and leveraging that knowledge to guide their efforts, has never been more important.  

The success of books such as “Drive” and “Predictably Irrational” are evidence that today’s business leaders are looking for better ways to engage and drive behavior within the organization.  The idea of “ordering” people to do something is no longer de rigueur and executives are beginning to understand that internally and externally there are better ways to influence behavior.

For the past 80 years or so, the two main tools used to focus and drive employee, channel and consumer behavior were incentives/rewards and fear.  Fear has always been the last resort and incentives – from cash bonuses, stock options, travel awards and merchandise awards the more “enlightened” approach.  

The technology for guiding behavior has pretty much stayed the same for 8 decades.

Time to Adapt

Any long-time reader of this blog will know, we look at a variety of ways to influence behavior.  We believe that humans – our units of production at most companies – are the most complex machinery in the world.  The maintenance and service requirements for these machines are huge.  No two machines are the same and their service and maintenance needs can change daily.  One day they may need validation – the next, new software (training.)  

In other words, getting the most value out of our human resources is not as easy as tuning up an engine or tightening a belt.  

We need to learn how to best engage with our employees, channel partners and consumers so that THEIR needs are met – as well as our organizations’ needs.

Old Tools Still Matter

While the new information we’re seeing is important and valuable for determining the best way to influence behavior there is a knee-jerk reaction going on that eschews all previous tools and techniques in favor of the “bright, shiny, object.”  We don’t agree.  We believe that there is a combination of new and old that is optimal for guiding the behaviors you want – and satisfying the needs of the individual.  

And we want to tell you about it.

Motivation Show – Oct 13, 2010

On October 13, 2010 at the Motivation Show in Chicago, I2I will be presenting and leading a session called:  Responding to the Assault on Incentives.  Our goal in this session is to bring a balanced discussion to the floor.  We’ll talk about the various ways to influence behavior – both old and new – and solicit what we hope is a lively discussion on combing the “new” and the “old” to bring about engaged audiences.  

Mark your calendars and please, join us for our session on October 13, 2010 at the Motivation Show in Chicago.  From some of the folks I've talked to this session will fill up fast - so sign up soon.  

Oh... and check out our teaser video - email subscribers may have to click through here to see video.... (btw - the new time is 3:30pm - 4:45 pm - the slides in the video are wrong...sorry)

How To Spot The Manager You NEED To Work For

I posted recently on the bombshell (at least in the incentive industry) that Amazon.com was pulling out of the incentive merchandise fulfillment space.  This was huge news in our little corner of the world (for the history and impact see my post here.)

Amazon.com was going to change the industry.  Their purchasing power, the sheer volume of their merchandise choices, their fulfillment capabilities, their pricing - all pointed to more choice for participants at a greater value.  What client could argue with that value proposition? 

Not many.  Amazon.com capture a fairly big share of the market quickly.  I had heard they exeeded $500 million in sales within 2 years (don't have any hard data on that - purely anecdotal.)

Fast forward two years and - poof.  Amazon.com is gone.

Incentive companies and the Executives at those companies had two reactions to this...

1. Wow... that was weird.  Now, what did we learn from this?
    
2. Wow... that was weird.  I knew it wouldn't work.  Told you so.  Whew... we don't need to change.

Choose #1

If you work at an incentive company ask yourself which of these reactions came from your boss?  If it was #2 - get your resume ready 'cuz they aren't going to be leading your company into any new and interesting directions.  They are going to be scraping the profit off an old business model for as long as it takes until they can retire and leave you holding the bag.

#1 recognizes that the Amazon.com experiment generated a lot of buzz, a lot of business, a lot of clients.  In other words, they hit on something the market wanted.  

The market still wants it.  

And when a market wants something the market gets it.  

The market will not be denied.

Some Smart Guys...

I don't usually pimp for any incentive company on this blog but a couple of people caught my attention - and inadvertently created the idea of this post.

First was a comment from Hinda Incentives in their blog (written I believe by @drewhawkins )...

"Whenever a juggernaut like Amazon withdraws from a particular industry, it’s big news, especially after a relatively short time. While they lasted less than three years in the industry, they were a game changer. They made us better even with our 40 years experience in this industry."

Second was Kurt Nelson  ( @whatmotivates ) from the Lantern Group on his blog...

"While Amazon might be leaving, they showed that there was a desire in the marketplace for something like this.  I don’t think there is another company right now that could fill that role, but that doesn’t mean in the future there couldn’t be.  So, with that in mind, it is important to think about the next game.  What will this mean for the traditional incentive houses, for the mid or small sized performance improvement firms?  Will someone take that bold step to change the game and bring in a different set of plays and players or will they exhale a deep breathe, thankful the other team forfeited, and go back to their old ways of playing? "

These are guys that understand the need to question things and learn and grow.  Props guys...

You NEED To Work for A Great Manager

A great manager will look at these experiences as learning experiences.  A great manager will ask...  "what happened?"  A great manager learns from the experience and moves forward.

A poor manager let's out a sigh of relief when the challenge goes away and buries herself back in historical success.  The #2's of the world will continue to do what they've done and learn nothing from the experience.  The #2's will be surprised again.  The #2's will always have "hope" as a strategy.

Listen to how your manager addresses challenges.  Do they ask how, why, when, who?  Do they look for causes and reasons?  

Or does your manager find reasons why it won't work?  Does your manager assume they are right and the challenger is wrong?

Work for a manager that continues to explore and seek to understand.  

Great managers assume others are intelligent and competent - even their competition.

If your manager thinks they are the smartest guy/gal in the room.  They're not.

  

Amazon Departs Incentive Fulfillment?

UPDATE 2:40 PM April 7, 2010

Through an anonymous source who has had conversations with someone at Amazon I have heard that, although profitable, the decision was made to drop fulfillment through incentive programs due to customer service issues.  Specifically, the recipient, if they had problems with their order, would call Amazon for resolution but Amazon would have to refer them back to the incentive company - who in turn would do the due diligence to fix the problem.  From Amazon's point of view this created a negative impression of their customer service.

If that is truly the case, that speaks volumes about how fundamental the culture of service is at Amazon - willing to drop a profitable line of business because it negatively impacts their core values.  Kudos to Amazon if true.  With their recent purchase of Zappos (and their zeal-like attention to customer service) I can almost believe it.  Time will tell.

Original post follows.

Late on Tuesday April 6 a story broke on Incentive Magazine that Amazon may be getting out of merchandise fulfillment for incentive programs.  

It is still somewhat a “rumor” in that no one so far has returned calls to the magazine or verified the story.  I shot a note to my contact at Amazon and got a “no longer a valid email” so I’m scratching my head along with the rest of us.

A History Lesson

For those that may have not heard the story, Amazon came into the incentive arena about 2006/2007 as a merchandise fulfillment option for incentive program fulfillment.  Their plan was to allow incentive companies to connect with their online catalog –via an API (application programming interface), price items in “point values” and complete the transaction behind the scenes.  The participant in the program wouldn’t really know that Amazon was the engine until the box hit the doorstep.  

The benefit was that participants were now able to get all of Amazon’s items with their incentive points.  Traditional incentive companies, with their print and online catalogs of 2,000 or so items, would look pale by comparison.  Not to mention, smaller incentive companies, without the resources to create a catalog on their own, would now be able to hook into arguably the largest incentive merchandise catalog in the world.  The concept was pretty ingenious.

The kicker was - Amazon sold their merchandise to the incentive companies at their normal retail price.

That was HUGE!  

Merchandise has traditionally been the profit generator at almost every incentive company.  Some margins on incentive merchandise exceed 50% (that’s a 100% markup for your math folks.)  I know some companies have shopped incentive merchandise in their program catalog against prices as Wal-Mart and Target and have seen incentive items 40%–50% higher in the incentive catalog.  For many incentive companies – losing merchandise margin could mean going at out of business.

I for one loved, loved, loved the idea.  

But then again, I love disruption.  I love new thinking and challenges to the status quo.  

Evolution only occurs when something changes.  Sometimes they are good changes and the species survives.  Sometimes they are bad changes and the deviation dies.  I thought this was one that would be a game changer.  So much so in fact that I met with the folks at Amazon to discuss how to take it to the next level and use their predictive modeling algorithms within a program to help participants set goals and drive performance.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t make that happen.

Say It Ain’t So Joe…

But I sit here now and asked what happened?  Where was my thinking off-base?  I don’t mind being wrong.  I just don’t like being wrong and not knowing why.  

Some speculate that the application was outside their “core” business model.  I don’t see that.  Fulfilling merchandise is their core business model.

Some speculate that the issue of sales taxes may have been a problem.  That has a little validity but not a ton IMHO.  

Others speculate that the customer service issues did them in.  I find that exceedingly unlikely since they handle more customer service calls in a day than most incentive companies do in a year.

I hope someone comments and lets me know what the real scoop is.  

 I like disruption – but I don’t like being wrong and being ignorant at the same time.

Anyone have any information?  Anyone, anyone, Bueller, Bueller?

Anonymity is guaranteed if you want to chat.  

5YY7B7JBDEDV

Age of Conversation Part Tres...

You may remember that we participated in a book project - a multiple author book project - called Age of Conversation 2.  Well - the trilogy is complete, or will be soon.  You'll notice in the right sidebar we have a new image linking to a page all about the Age of Conversation 3.

This time out it's bigger and better.  More authors and more wisdom on how to put "new marketing" to work.  We have a page in the "influence" section.  The book will be released in April some time but I wanted to make sure you started saving your latte change so you can immediately get your copy.

All profits and proceeds go to charity, just like before.  This time around we are contributing to "Make A Wish Foundation" - just think - get good and do good all in one fell swoop.

Take some time - check out the page by clicking on this link or the image to the right and get ready to be amazed.

I'll update you all when the book is for sale.  Start standing in line now!

Audience Engagement and 99 Luft Red Balloons

Actually 10 luft red balloons.

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the grandparent to the internet) announced a challenge on December 5, 2009.  Find 10 red balloons placed randomly in the United States and win (earn) $40,000.  And you thought your tax money was wasted.

From their site:

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems.

The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States. The balloons will be in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roads.

The winners were a team from MIT that used, in their words - "a recursive incentive strategy."  Fancy words for "give us info we'll pay you."  Incentives do work. 

This week on Colbert Report they had one of the members of the winning team from MIT, Riley Crane, on the show.  Below is the video of the interview.  (Email subscribers may have to click through.)

What is fascinating to me is they found the balloons in.... wait for it...

8 hours 52 minutes.  

Watch Steven Colbert's reaction when Riley Crane tells him that.  

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Riley Crane
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Your Take Away

Given a direction toward a goal, the tools to collect information and insights, and an incentive - your company could find solutions to your business issues.  This type of challenge can engage and energize your team.  Think about a few problems you want to solve at your organization.  Could getting smart people energized and connected solve them?  

As Riley Crane mentions in the video - if you have a clear target, with a verifiable solution, and can align individual self-interest with the greater goal - you can have remarkable results.

Sounds like an incentive program.

 

And just 'cuz it's fun....

 

 

December Influence Insiders - Incentives Bane or Boon?

I know, it was hard for me to believe a month has gone by since our last (and the first) Influence Insiders radio show, but the calendar doesn't lie.  This Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at Noon is the second show.

Our first show was well attended in person and had over 150 additional listens after the show aired.  I can only hope that is a good indicator that we're offering some value.

For those that didn't catch the overview and the first show, a bit of background:

Influence Insiders is a core group of experts, bloggers, thought leaders and smart folks who will get together monthly to talk about the things that challenge them and their clients with respect to engaging various audiences.  The core group includes myself and:

• Ann Bares (Minneapolis):  Managing Partner  – Altura Consulting Group, author of the blog Compensation Force and editor/contributor for multi-author blog Compensation Café 
   
• Frank Roche (Philadelphia):  Partner iFractal – sponsor and contributor to very popularKnowHR blog.
   
• Heather Margolis (Boston):  President Channel Maven Consulting
   
• Julien Dionne (Ottawa, CN):  Julien authors the very informative blog leap.com and works with OpenSymmetry a consultancy that specializes in Sales Performance Management
   
• Lance Haun (Portland, Or):  Lance has a long history in the HR field and authors the highly rated and read blog YourHRGuy – now called Rehaul.  He currently is VP Outreach for a company called Meritbuilder
   
• Todd Hanson (Appleton, WI): CEO of Catalyst Performance Group.  Todd’s group is heavily into measuring the ROI of marketing and incentive/reward programs and he authors the blog called the ROI of Engagement.

Premier Episode November 4, 2009

You can listen to our previous show in this window by clicking on the embedded player to the right or click here to go to the show's home on blogtalkradio.

December Show Topic - Incentives, Huh - What are they good for?

For this month's show we'll be talking about incentives, what they are and what they are not.  We'll discuss when they make sense, when they don't and the perils and pitfalls of poorly designed programs.  We'll touch on incentives are used within the various audience groups - consumer, channel and employees as well as talk about when they make the most sense.  

I don't know if we'll get to a universal definition and application of incentives but the conversation is sure to bring up some interesting points of view and valuable information you can use in your business.

Please join us on Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at Noon EST for an hour of interesting and informative discussion.  Mark those calendars and feel free to share this info with anyone you think might have an interest in designing and developing incentives to influence behavior.

 

Related articles by Zemanta

• A Face Made For Radio - Conversations About Influence - New Blogtalkradio Show (i2i-align.com)
• Premier Episode - Influence Insiders On Blogtalkradio - May I Have Your Attention? (i2i-align.com)

HRevolution - Brought to You By John Madden

This past weekend I spent a couple of days in Louisville, KY with 50 smart people interested in HR.  The program, HRevolution, was billed as an "unconference" - and I can say it lived up to that name.  No "standard" powerpoints (I really don't remember seeing one prepared slide,) lots of conversation and participation from the audience.  Formal and informal at the same time.  In other words - different than most conferences you'd attend.  A bit more free-flowing and open.  Fun to watch and fun to participate in.  

Huge mad props go to @trishmcfarlane, @beneubanks, @steveboese and @crystalpeterson for taking the time and the risk to put this together.  Thank you.  I enjoyed the meeting, loved the people, was interested in the content, learned some interesting perspectives.  120% worth my time.

But here's the thing (this is where the temperature will go up and the haters will come out...)

I'm not sure where we netted out.  

That may not be a bad thing - I'm just conditioned to leave meetings with a "to-do" list of things that I need to work on.  I didn't feel that anyone had that.  Until I have a to-do list I feel like I'm just cogitating - and I want to be activating.

It can get dangerous in my head when I don't have a to-do list.  I need to fill that vacuum and it can lead to neurons making connections that can get me in trouble.  This may be one of those times...

HRevolution - Are You Ready For Some Football?

I am not in HR.  Never been.  I've bumped into it in a few times.  Never a hard bump but one that could have drawn an interference flag had someone been watching.  My experience has always been that HR was the group in the organization that protected the CEO, other Execs and shareholders.  If we were playing football, HR was the offensive line for the muckitymucks.  HR kept the bad stuff out - away from the brains behind mahogony doors planning the next big strategic move, the next buy-out, the next financial whatzzit that will drive share price.

But interestingly - for Managers like myself and my employees they also played defense.  Every time I'd try to run a new play, one I thought could gain a few extra yards, HR was there cutting it off.  Simple things - changing titles, going outside "average" raises, not having "official" office furniture.  Every time I'd run the play HR seemed to be in the way - knocking the ball down, hitting me behind the lines.

How is that possible?  How can people on your own team play on both sides of the ball.  For you AND against you?

Then it hit me.  They weren't on my team - they were on the "company" team.  The company has a different definition of winning.  They didn't care about my playbook, only their own.

And that is the problem - in most organizations, HR is tasked with playing both ways, on both teams.

You can't win that game.  

When you play both ways on both teams you can't win, you can't lose, you can only draw.  I felt the frustration in the voices at HRevolution.  They feel that pain. I truly believe they are conflicted - and I feel for you all.

You Can't Change HR - You Can Only Change Companies

I'll bet if you look at any organization that has a creative, proactive, successful HR department you have a unified team approach to the market.  In other words, HR (as the progressives see it) can ONLY work in a company where everyone is on the same team. (Zappos anyone?)

Until you have the executives, managers, shareholders, employees - all agreeing with the mission/vision/values you can't have good HR.  

• Good HR can only exist within a company run by executives who would rather lose money than lose people.  
  
  
• Good HR can only exist within a company where the lowest employee should have the best parking space. 
  
  
• Good HR can only exist within a company where HR is the most important department - not accounting.

HR has a choice in my book.  HR can continue to talk to other HR folks and commiserate about the position they are place in - or they can choose a team and play the game.  

Play it hard, play it fast and play to win. 

So after listening for two days I net out here...

If you want to provide progressive, important, seat-at-the-table (gah - I said it!) HR, find a good company.  

If you can't find a good company, change a bad company by changing the Executive Team (don't try to change HR or the employees - you all know what do to)

If you want average HR play both sides of the ball and live with it.

It's fourth down, 2 yards to the end-zone, 6 seconds left in the game, this score wins it.  What do you do?

Me - I'd punt just for sh*ts and giggles.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sunday Shout Out: HREvolution
• Decompressing from HRevolution
• It’s Over
• Revolution: Breaking Down the Wall of Old HR?
• Evolved, Resolved, and Revolutionized- HRevolution
• HRevolution – Beginnings