Carrots & Sticks, Grasshopper

I have written before about carrots and sticks, fear and reward, and about the fact that we possibly need both to be motivated to carry out actions.� The fear makes us pay attention, while the rewards stimulate interest and engagement.

But what works best when we are instructing other people is a fusion of the two.� As a mentor of mine once said: �The greatest motivator you can have as a leader is when the carrot becomes the stick.�

Now if you�re thinking that this sounds a little bit like a scene from Kung-Fu (�Snatch this pebble from my hand, Grasshopper�) then you are not alone.� I remember feeling somewhat mystified when my mentor gave me this little tid-bit of management insight, and I am sure the look on my face read: WTF??

Ahhh, I see � the carrot is the stick

But as he explained it, it made an incredible amount of sense.� In a nutshell, here is what he meant.

When people tell you what they�re goals are and the underlying processes and commitments that they have to make in order to achieve those goals, they are essentially letting you know what their carrots are.� When they don�t stick to those commitments, it then becomes easy to use those carrots as potential sticks to keep them on track:

In each of these occasion the carrot has become the stick, and there can be no more useful stick than that which the person willingly hands over.

Do we use the carrot or the stick?� Maybe they�re the same thing.

Why do we rely on case studies to determine the right and wrong way to lead people?� Is that enough evidence?

We have piles of case studies

When I was working with sporting teams, the coaching staff would often look at other teams � sometimes from the same sport, sometimes from others � to see how we could improve the way we prepare our athletes.� We would sit on the sidelines and watch how they trained, we would talk to the coaching and support staff to see what other innovations they had implemented away from the training ground as well.� Did they employ different strategies when they were travelling long distances?� Maybe different recovery techniques to get their players to respond better to training?� Were they using different nutritional supplements to help their athletes perform at their peak?

But when we came across something we found interesting, we didn�t just take it at face value; we looked at the science behind the technique to find some evidence that this innovation would, in fact, work.� And the key word here is fact.� We would look at the indisputable evidence � how does it affect the physiology of the athlete?� How does it affect their biology and body chemistry?� And then, based on this, should it work?� Should we adopt it?

We didn�t just say: �Hey, they do it��and they�re successful, so we should do it too.�

The Problem with Copycat Leadership

We scrutinised the science, because this observation of cause and effect isn�t the most robust way to determine whether something is effective or not.� For example, the oldest person that ever lived also used to smoke avidly for the majority of her life.� Based on cause and effect, if you want to live to 123 years old, then you should probably smoke until you are 118.� But we know that this doesn�t make sense.� Why?� The science tells us so.

Do we scrutinise leadership that rigorously?

The short answer is no.� We base it on cause and effect.� Google does �x� and Google is successful, therefore we should do �x� as well.� Howard Schultz does �y�, he made Starbucks really successful, therefore we should do �y�.

Now, I am sure that there are plenty of things that we can learn from this cause and effect observation, and I am sure that the things that Howard Schultz and Google do are pretty damn good.� But I also know that leadership and inspiring and engaging people is tough work (not to mention time consuming) and wouldn�t you like to make sure that you are putting your efforts to the best use.

Listen to the science

Although there is not much research around how different leadership styles directly affect the science of how people perform, there are innumerable scientific research papers that examine the effects on people�s ability to perform at their best.� At the moment, the leap between what the science tells us and what we should do as leaders is one based on faith, but there are some pretty compelling arguments for creating the right environment for people to perform to their full potential.

In a later blog, we are going to look at the evidence and see how we can apply it in our workplaces everyday.

At the end of the work day find a way to unwind for twenty minutes before re-engaging with the next part of your life �whether that�s family, friends or personal time.� Disconnect from work by listening to music in the car, reading a book on the bus, or watching some television at home.

There is an extremely high chance that they person you have been at work is slightly different from the person that you have to be in this next phase of your day.� Carrying some of that persona over (along with carrying the stress, to-do-list and mindset) will most likely have a negative impact on the second part of your day.

Some psychologists call this the �third place�.�� It is the place that you go in between your work and personal life.� And I think that�s a good way to look at it.� How do you get yourself into another �place� once you get out of work so that you can leave the �work stuff� behind and not let it impact the rest of your day?

A Jennifer Aniston Neuron?

If you’ve read John Medina’s great book, The Brain Rules, then you will have come across something that he calls the ‘Jennifer Aniston’ neuron.

In short, if you show people a picture of Jennifer Aniston, there is a neural area of their brain that starts going berserk.� Is this because Jen is so amazingly attractive to our brains? Well, she might be, but that’s not really the point.

The contingency is that if you’ve never seen Jen (and I don’t know where they found these particular subjects) then the brain activity doesn’t� take place.� What this shows is that if you’ve seen Jennifer before, then you’ve created a specific neural network that registers when you see her again.� If you haven’t seen Jen before, then this network doesn’t exist.

This got me thinking. What happens when you run into someone that you have, apparently, met before, but who you don’t remember? Clearly one of two things must have happened.

Either you never built the connection – maybe that person wasn’t important enough, or you were paying attention to something completely different and the networks just didn’t connect.

Or,� you once had the connection but now you’ve lost it.� Our brains are continually creating and replacing neural ‘maps’ so maybe you have replaced it with something else, or it is buried beneath so much other stuff that you can’t get it to fire up again.

Can the same thing happen to individual or team goals?

What were the team goals, again?

Everyone has sat in on the ‘Team Planning’ session – it is usually at the beginning of the new financial year and the manager spells out the things that the team needs to achieve (the KPI’s, the budgets, the strategy, the vision) but after a few months the majority of the team can’t seem to remember most of those things.� Sure, they might know their personal budget targets, but the rest of the objectives go out the window. The same thing has happened: Either the goals weren’t important enough to make the new neural connection, or they got buried under the ensuing ‘business-as-usual’ approach to office management.� Whatever the case, the upshoot is that team members can’t really see the goals – they don’t have a ‘goals’ neuron.� From a performance perspective, this will stop them from working towards these goals as efficiently as possible.

Oh, that’s right.� I WAS going to do that, wasn’t I?

On an individual level this is also true.� Why do I keep forgetting to drink water throughout the day, even though I told myself that it was important?� The same thing has happened yet again: either the neural connections were never made or they are not important enough to stay at the top of the pile – I don’t have a strong ‘drink water’ neuron.� The upshoot is that that particular goal doesn’t get achieved.� You can substitute drinking water for ‘time with the kids’, ‘chores around the house’, ‘spending quality time with your spouse’.� Anything, really, that you set out to do but never really go traction on.

What happens when the connection is particularly strong?

If you have ever met someone and instantly fallen in love with them, you will notice that a very strange phenomenon takes place.� You start to think you see that person everywhere.� In the bus on the way home, at the markets on the weekend, at the airport…….it seems that just about every second person resembles this new-found attraction.

What is happening is that you haven’t just created the ‘new love’ neuron; this network is so strong that it is looking for an excuse to fire up and get active.

Imagine if that were the case for those goals that we talked about earlier.� Imagine if your staff could see opportunities to create amazing customer service experiences where others couldn’t see them; imagine if your sales team could see opportunities buried under other opportunities to find another deal; imagine if, habitually, you just programmed time into your schedule at the start of every week to spend quality time with your kids.� And your wife.

The bottom line is that if you set out to do something but can’t get it done, it’s not just because you keep forgetting, it’s because it was never quite important enough to you in the first place to get the neural connections firing and the brain chemicals working.� And the same is true for the people that you manage.� Once you understand this, you can take steps to making better priorities both for your own goals and those of your team.

Or, maybe you could just marry Jennifer Aniston?