Page 216 - The Power to Change Anything
P. 216
Design Rewards and Demand Accountability 205
According to Paul Silka, an emergency room physician at
Cedars-Sinai, doctors often believe, “Hey, I couldn’t be carrying
the bad bugs. It’s the other hospital personnel.” Nobody believes
that he or she is part of the offending majority.
To help set the record straight as well as propel doctors to
wash effectively, administrators tried several techniques. First
they deluged doctors with e-mails, posters, and faxes. That
didn’t work. It’s likely that most physicians continued to believe
that the problem was someone else’s, not theirs. In fact, noth-
ing worked until administrators stumbled on a simple incen-
tive scheme. Staff members met doctors in the parking lot and
handed them a bottle of hand disinfectant. Then Dr. Silka
assigned a group of staff members to see if they could catch
doctors in the act of using the disinfectant (choosing a positive
over a negative approach).
Now here’s where incentives came into play. When admin-
istrators “caught” physicians using the disinfectant, they gave
them a $10 Starbucks card. That’s it. They gave a $10 coupon to
the highest-paid professionals in the hospital as an enticement for
not passing on deadly diseases. With this incentive alone, com-
pliance in that particular facility moved from 65 to 80 percent.
Reward Vital Behaviors, Not Just Results
Earlier we learned that it’s best to take complex tasks and turn
them into small, achievable goals. Now we’re adding another
concept. Reward small improvements in behavior along the
way. Don’t wait until people achieve phenomenal results, but
reward small improvements in behavior.
As simple as this sounds, we’re bad at it, especially at work.
When polled, employees reveal that their number-one com-
plaint is that they aren’t recognized for their notable perfor-
mances. Apparently people hand out praise as if it were being
rationed, and usually only for outstanding work. Make a small
improvement, and it’s highly unlikely that anyone will say or