Many of us had that teacher in grade school that instituted a behavioral management system rooted in positive reinforcement in a last-ditch effort to tame the wild and unfocused masses of 7-year-old boys and girls unleashed upon them by stressed parents each morning. The carrot was simple, yet oddly abstract: the gold star. Some teachers who lived near more well-stocked stationery stores worked in some silver and bronze stars as well.
A student earned these stars by respecting the rules, completing assignments on time, working well with others, and so on. A tally was kept in an attempt to either reward the most cooperative or publicly shame the least cooperative, depending on how you looked at it.
There was usually some kind of end game tied to the tally, whether it was free milk in the cafeteria, extra recess time or a free pass on a night’s homework. In the end, the system worked about as well as one could expect such a system to work on a bunch of spoiled kids.
Years later, the tables have turned. Now you have got a building full of distinct personalities and varying levels of motivation, and you face the problem of getting everyone to work together respectfully and productively.
Hopefully, you have a system in place that goes further than the gold star — perhaps more in-depth evaluations, career planning and financial incentives. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of a little trick from your grade school teacher’s repertoire to remind team members about the small behaviors that help drive effective collaboration.
To that end, a company called Rare Method has created a Web-based gold-star-type program called Kudos, that allows a team leader to create and easily maintain a program to recognize those oft-unnoticed helping hands extended during the average workweek. Not only does the program have a wonderfully clever tagline (Thank Different.) and an impressive website, it also allows each team member to give kudos to their teammates through a simple Web-based interface. The program will also keep track of the total — just like teacher did – so you can dangle a carrot, like, say, an extra day off, or a gift certificate to Olive Garden, to the team member who ends the month with the most kudos.
By no means should you go scrap your Christmas bonuses, your employee career planning or your year-end evaluations. But investing the cash to buy a bottomless salad, some spaghetti, and a simple and fairly cheap Web-based program in order to get team members to pitch in a little more is certainly an idea worth considering.
