The Trouble With Rewards

The Trouble with Rewards

Organizational Development & Culture

Alfie Kohn is a lecturer and author whose primary focus is behavior management in schools, in the workplace, and in our parenting techniques. In 1993, Kohn published “Punished by Rewards”. In this work, Kohn listed five main arguments against the use of performance-based reward systems. The arguments against such reward systems are:

• Rewards Punish

• Rewards Rupture Relationships

• Rewards Ignore Reasons

• Rewards Discourage Risk-Taking

• Rewards Undermine Intrinsic Motivation

On its face, it seems contradictory that a reward would be an unhealthy means to assist the process of learning or behaving. How else would the unpleasantries of learning, of working, or of becoming a well-adjusted member of society be relayed, received, and reacted upon? Following is an analysis of Kohn’s main arguments against performance-based reward systems and whether or not there is agreement or disagreement with those arguments.

Rewards Punish

Again, initially, this thought seemed backward. How is possible that an act that is intended to encourage a particular behavior be considered punishment? However, after analyzing the information, I would agree with this statement. The reasons that rewards punish are:

• Rewards punish because they are manipulative.

• Not receiving a reward that one expected to receive is no different than being punished.

• Coercion destroys motivation.(Gleason, 2008)

• Punishment and rewards function in the same way.

A real-life example of where I realized that rewards punish occurred at work. I am a service leader and thus am there to assist and direct my peers in their daily work. As such, I also have the pleasure of solving problems that others do not have time to correct. In one such occasion, I was able to restore a customer’s telephone service in very short order. However, as the order was not mine, I instructed my co-worker who was working on this account to call the customer to make sure that all was well. As a result, the customer wrote a letter to the CEO praising my co-worker’s effort and efficiency in resolving her problem. This resulted is his receiving a corporate service award and a monetary reward. Needless to say, I was not pleased. I had done the work, but yet was not recognized. This made me feel that it is not necessary to put forth such effort since it was a thankless function. I felt punished for doing a good job because it was not noted in the least.

Rewards Rupture Relationships

The idea of “there can be only one” is the bedrock of American values. There has to be an ultimate winner and then there’s everyone else. Logically following this thought process would lead us to the understanding that rewarding the “one” causes a breakdown in relationships. The following are the reasons that I would agree that rewards rupture relationships:

• They emphasize the difference in power between the person handing out the reward and the person receiving it.

• Excellence depends on teamwork.

• Employees will not ask for help when needed.

• Problems will be concealed so that reputations remain intact.

• Rewards create competitiveness among employees and this undermines collaboration and teamwork.

An example where rewards rupture relationships can be viewed by watching the relationship between my daughter, her close friends, and the tooth fairy. When my daughter lost her front tooth, she received $5 from the tooth fairy. I personally thought this was an acceptable amount as it was a lovely tooth, so I did not question the amount. However, her friend’s did not share my opinion. Upon hearing the sum that she received, they were very sad and upset and thought that the tooth fairy was not fair at all as they had only received $1 for their first front teeth. This then caused some tension during their play as they just could not get over the difference in the amounts given. So instead of the girls being happy that she received a great reward, they were extremely unhappy and bitter, and have repeated the story and its unfairness repeatedly over the years. All was remedied once they discovered that the tooth fairy was me and that I simply didn’t have any smaller denomination at the time.

Rewards Ignore Reasons

I would agree with this statement. In the business realm, it would seem that the old adage of “It’s not whether you win or lose; its how you play the game” does not apply. The reasons I would agree that rewards ignore reasons are:

• Danger of people gaming the system. This is when “people do what gets counted, and lose sight of what counts”. In other words, is the focus towards growth stifled by the need to make sure you make “the numbers” this month?

• Promotes a single solution approach.

• We miss the insight to identify systematic problems that are causes of behavior.

Everything that is measured has very little to do with whether or not a process is effective because it is assumed that if the numbers are in the acceptable range, then the process that created them is not flawed. This thought process does not allow for improvement suggestions or revelations of issues. An example of how rewards ignore reasons comes from the workplace. In my office, all of our functions are micromanaged to the second вЂ" literally. For example, we are allowed to take no more than 5.4 minutes to call a customer regarding their order to remain in an “acceptable” range. The thought is that since this number is an average, it should not be affected by the occasional call that goes beyond that time