Incentives

[lifemap@ix.netcom.com]

Subject: Re: Kaizen Vs Incentive
>From Ed Baker, lifemap@ix.netcom.cvom

Biswajit Dutta wrote:

> I am in a dilema that what sort of incentive would be appropriate to 
>make all the people ( 1300) of our organization accross the level do 
>kaizen continuously.

Mr. Dutta, here is a model you may want to use. It works well on rats in psychology experiments. 
Place the rat (employee?) in a box (cubicle?). The activity to be "incentivized" is bar 
pressing. Let the incentive be food in the form of pellets that are delivered through a tube 
into the cubicle (box)when a bar (lever type arrangement) is depressed and released. A counter 
measures the number of bar presses. (Remember, you get what you measure; and, you can't manage 
what you can't measure.) Once the rat discovers that his bar pressing will eventually produce a 
pellet of food, he will press the bar. However, don't make the delivery of the food too 
predictable. Best results in bar pressing are achieved when the pellets are delivered on a 
random basis. This way the rat will work like crazy since he does not know which particlar bar 
press, or how many presses, will produce the incentive. If the rat gets tired of this particlar 
incentive, e.g., perhaps he has had some luck and is now well-fed, let him press for the 
opportunity to run on the exercise wheel (rat gymnasium). When he gets tired of running, switch 
back to the  pellet incentive.

No kidding, this works very well in rats. It is cross-cultural in that it also works for gerbils 
and other such creatures. Good luck with your incentive program.

Ed Baker

[Moderator's Note:  B.F. Skinner would be proud...  ;-)  ]
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