Create consequences that support desired performance. Make certain that the performance consequences you’ve put in place support the types of behavior you are trying to encourage from your team. To examine the performance consequences that you’ve put into place for your team, take the following steps:
1. Identify an area in which you are not getting the type of performance you want from your team. Be specific. Examples might include:

• The quality defects we are encountering in the finishing stage of production runs.
• Our ability to respond politely and completely to requests for information from other departments
• Our excessive time to completion for new project bids.

2. Now briefly describe the types of behavior that would support superior performance in the selected area. For example, if the area is “our ability to respond politely and completely to requests for information from other departments;” desired behavior might include such things as:

• Staying on the line until a problem is resolved
• Providing complete information to your internal customers
• Politely explaining to customers why certain requests for assistance can’t be met

3. Now contrast this ideal behavior with the behavior you are currently getting from members:

• Being rude or abrupt on the phone
• Providing minimal responses (“No, we can’t do that”) that don’t explain why certain requests can’t be met

• A tendency for individuals to pass on requests for assistance to other members rather than

tracking down information or attempting to answer difficult technical questions raised by customers.

4. Ask yourself the following questions:
• What consequences support desired behavior? What positive things happen when members do it right?

• What consequences actually discourage desired behavior? What punishing things happen when members do it right?
• What consequences support undesired behavior? In what ways are members rewarded when they do it

wrong?

• What consequences discourage undesired behavior? What punishing things happen when members perform poorly?

Tags: messages, strategy

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