The importance of having a purposeful reward system in organizations

💎 Stephen Robbins, in his book 53 Principles of Managing People, writes: One management consultant, who specifically studied the management of military forces, noticed that police officers during their shifts would get into the car assigned to them every morning, drive to the highway of their mission, and spend the entire workday driving back and forth along that highway.

🔹 Clearly, this aimless patrolling had little to do with the core duties assigned to the police.

🔹 In his review, the consultant realized that the performance and efficiency of police officers in that city were measured by the distance they drove each day.

🔹 As a result, officers drove long distances back and forth daily, without making any meaningful contribution to public safety.

🔹 This real story reminds us that when we evaluate and reward employees in a stereotypical way, and forget to reward the behaviors we truly value, employees eventually turn to superficial and routine behaviors.

🔹 Consequently, despite offering various and even abundant rewards, we find that employees lack motivation for major tasks and keep themselves busy with trivial, everyday work.

🔹 In such situations, we must always seek to change the organization’s reward system, knowing that even small adjustments can lead to extraordinary results.

🔹 The importance of reward systems became even clearer to me when one of my wealthy relatives told his adopted son: “Don’t worry about making money! When I die, all my wealth will be yours.”

🔹 As it happened, this relative lived for a very long time, and throughout his old age he never understood why his adopted son had no interest in preserving his health.

🔹 When he brought this up with me, I replied: “Because you are rewarding your son for your death, not for your life.”

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