Misguided Incentive

At hockey practice, the kids lined up at center ice for a shoot-out, where each skater would in turn try to score on their goalie. This is a fun drill, especially for the goalies, who go head-to-head with each of their friends, their teammates. Shoot-outs are a matter of pride for goalie's; their reputation is on the line so they do everything they can to keep the puck out of the net. But, on this occasion, the coach decided to offer a prize of two dollars if the goalie could stop all the pucks on the first round of about twenty skaters. The rationale was "you have to give them incentive or they won't try."

The goalie was pretty excited - two bucks is two bucks - still a significant amount of money for a kid. But, when the fourth skater of twenty scored, this external "incentive" dissappeared, and the goalie visibly reduced his effort, even moving out of the way on some harder shots. The coach was miffed, and when he asked the goalie what he was doing, he said "why bother, I can't get the two dollars anymore."

So, by offering the perk, the bonus, the money incentive, the coach replaced the pure joy of stopping pucks with the calculated pursuit of two bucks. What the kid normally would do just because he loved it, he now stopped doing as soon as the external "incentive" was no longer attainable.

Managers, coaches, and leaders need to learn that internal incentive is the only true incentive. So set a fair wage, then take money out of the day-to-day picture, and let people enjoy their work.