[Ailist] incentives

[Roger Davies]

Hi Alice,

Your last paragraph explains why incentives should not be used. I am
interested in what incentives are present at every moment in every
organization every day. Maybe it's a definition thing. We do exchange
'reward' and 'incentive' very freely and in my humble opinion very
incorrectly.

The main difference is that an incentive is a guaranteed outcome that you
know about before you decide to act e.g. if you complete the project by a
certain date you WILL receive a monetary bonus

A reward is something that you may know is possible but is in no way
guaranteed e.g. If you find a purse full of money and hand it in to he
police rather than keep it you MIGHT be rewarded.

There are many occasions when the definition is not clear e.g. If you
achieve all of your personal targets for the year then you MIGHT be
considered for promotion. On the surface that's a harder one to define.
There is no guarantee of promotion but there is a guarantee that you
definitely won't get considered if you don't meet your targets. In reality
it's an incentive worded as a reward. It sounds like a reward because there
is no guarantee. However, you are now put in a position that to even be
considered for promotion you might consider making a decision that will
violate your values (be morally or ethically incorrect). 

You are correct incentives are everywhere , all the time and it is how we
choose to react to them that counts. However in many for profit
organizations currently driven by data and cascaded KPI's the outcome of
your choice can mean the difference between having a job or not. What is the
outcome for an organization whose members feel that they have to violate
their values in order to remain within the organization? 

Roger


-----Original Message-----
From: ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu
[mailto:ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Alice Leibowitz
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 5:11 PM
To: ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Subject: [Ailist] incentives


I'm a bit confused by the idea that "incentives should not be used" if
possible. My belief is that incentives are always present in every
organization at every moment of every day. The choice is whether to be
intentional or not.

It's true that there are intrinsic motivations, but as the Nazi project
showed us, almost anyone can violate their values if the incentive is strong
enough.

-- 
Alice Leibowitz
Partner
Insight Unlimited LLC
Non-profit, Community, and Grassroots Consulting
Hartford, CT
alice at insightunlimited.org
www.insightunlimited.org
(860) 956-9299

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