From [ Marc Abrams (981024.0239) ]
Seems to be a little lull in posting so I thought I would
try and bring some amusement ( it would if it weren't so
sad ) to the list.
These two posts were gotten from a _very_ popular list
devoted to Senge's concept of the _Learning Organization_
which is supposed to be people centered and a source for
_leading edge_ management practices. I have omitted the name
of the poster ( because it doesn't matter ) Both posts are
from the same person. This material comes from the Learning
Organization List. It was the second post and the discovery
of what this person is that blew me away..
Marc
ยทยทยท
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Replying to LO19578 --
Conflict is highly motivating to people. Most people who
find themselves in conflict are highly motivated to resolve
(or get out of) it. Therefore, as a change management
catalyst (that's what my consulting work is), I often find
it necessary to create or heighten the feeling of conflict
in order to get any change at all to happen. As you point
out, however, while some (much) conflict is negative, there
is also positive conflict. I describe the general case of
positive conflict in this way:
You discover that you can be better off doing something
different than doing what you're doing now. The trick is,
because most people expect so much "pain" from changing,
that the expectation of positive results must be great
enough to overcome the expected the pain of changing. And
the discomfort (conflict) from knowing that you could be
better off must be enough to counterbalance the comfort you
feel in continuing to do things the same way.
That's why, and I ask to be forgiven for this, it's
sometimes easier to "catastrophize" the current situation --
make it feel like a disaster is looming -- in order to get
people to consider changing something. And I do resort to
this technique. I don't lie about how bad the current
situation is (or will be in the future), but I do things to
make people experience this negative conflict more
personally and more strongly.
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Subject: one-time training bonuses LO19598
Replying to LO19575 --
There is lots of research on the general effect of one-time
reinforcers in the behavioral psychology literature. I am
not up on that literature any more so I can't tell you if
there has been any good work on effect size.However, from
the general studies, one thing can surely be expected: That
whatever the size of the effect (of a one-time bonus), it
will lead to some level of under-performance after the bonus
is paid. This used to be called the "post-reinforcement
pause." You get the same effect on any fixed (in time)
schedule of rewards -- that is, little additional activity
until shortly before the scheduled time, followed by a lot
of activity in a brief time immediately before the reward is
to given, followed by an immediate cessation of activity for
a period of time after the reward is
received. There was a brilliant article written, in the
1970's, analyzing the behavior of the U.S. Congress on just
these grounds. It showed a repeated, very predictable
pattern of passing laws (or not passing many) based entirely
on the schedule for the end of each session. Also, as a
behavioral psychologist, I feel I must say the effect of
paying a one-time training bonus are due to the "credible
promise" of paying the
bonus. That is, it is in anticipation of receiving the
bonus that people behave differently -- not as an affect of
having received the bonus. I only mention it because it
means that the effectiveness of such a bonus has a lot to do
with the credibility and attractiveness of the promise (and
how it is made). One cannot simply make a bonus available,
not
publicize it, not make it sound attractive, not make it
sound like "the thing to do," and expect it to have highly
positive effects.
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