The Psychology of Incentives and Motivation
We live in a culture driven by fame and fortune. It seems like everybody wants
to be either famous or rich or both. And most of us believe that we can--with
hard work and a little luck--achieve anything we decide to do. This is especially
true for the sales persona. Successful incentive programs begin with an
understanding of the people who work in a culture of high visibility, accountability
and short term gratification where risks and rewards are counted and posted and
where stardom is expected.
For most salespeople and sales managers, public acknowledgement of individual achievement is a very strong motivator because it calls out and puts the spotlight on the individual who is “the best.”
Finding the right reward for being the best is the holy grail of incentive programming. We have instant gratification at our fingertips in many aspects of our lives. So a program designed to change or direct behavior has to account for what we already have and layer onto it what we want, what we aspire to and what we will prize both in terms of physical and mental rewards. At the same time, a reward structure has to assume that participants are creative, adaptable and motivated individuals capable of remarkable achievements.
To some extent, psycho-demographics rule. Behavior is generally predicated on education, income, social class, ethnicity and past experience. Birth order, early childhood experiences, age, life stage, culture and self-definition also factor in how we see ourselves and into what drives us. And while there might be differences in motivating Baby Boomers versus Generations X and Y, age, life stage and short-term needs play significant roles for everyone.
Incentives clearly drive results but they work only when participants validate the program design by asking themselves three critical “expectancy” questions:
- Do I value the rewards offered?
- Can I realistically achieve the desired performance?
- Is the reward worthy of my performance?
Underlying and influencing this “what’s-in-it-for-me” calculus are broader perceptions about the equity of incentives to all participants, the trade-off value of doing something new or different compared to the expected reward and the emotional involvement of program participants. Everyone wants something that’s beyond their reach, budget or scope of control, so we are programmed to invest ourselves to do things differently to achieve a desired result.
