Tell your team they’re losing … just a little
Posted on 10. Oct, 2011 by Adrian in Blog, Orange
Some great new research in this month’s Harvard Business Review on motivating a team. Wharton professor Jonah Berger told subjects they were competing with a person in another room to see who could type the fastest. After one round he told subjects that they were either far behind, slightly behind, tied, or slightly ahead. Only the people who were told they were losing just a little significantly picked up their pace in the second round.
Interestingly the professor found a similar effect when he studied 60,000 basketball games (this guy has a lot of spare time). He found for every two points a team was ahead its chances of winning went up 7 percent. Except, that is, for teams down by one point at halftime. They were more likely to win than teams ahead by one point at the break. In fact, they won a whopping 8 percent more often.
The point for us in business? There’s something to Avis’ brilliant tag of “We Try Harder.” Our teams have more to give, and it’s up to us as managers to inspire them. Halftime for leaders is mid-term evaluations and even monthly check-ups with our people. It’s up to us to explain honestly to employees if they are behind in their goals, and to give them hope that they can catch up.
And we learn that employees will work a little harder if we have them engage in a few friendly competitions now and then, rather than working against just set goals. Especially if we reward them upon completion.
Think orange!
About Adrian Gostick
Adrian Gostick is a global thought leader on workplace strategy and the author of several successful books on employee engagement. The Carrot Principle by Simon & Schuster has been a regular New York Times bestseller, and 24-Carrot Manager has been called a “must read for modern-day managers” by Larry King of CNN. His latest book, The Orange Revolution, was a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller."
The Carrot Principle
Human performance accelerated? Is this book about the work place or the human race?
With breakthrough research of 200,000 people over ten years from The Jackson Organization, and massive, new global data collected by Towers Perrin, The Carrot Principle demonstrates how constructive praise and meaningful rewards powerfully motivates people from every walk of life and inspires employees to excel, engage, and bring their best to work every day.
The Orange Revolution
Following the enormous popularity of their bestselling The Carrot Principle, Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton return with a groundbreaking guide to building high-performance teams. The powerful research reported inThe Orange Revolution reveals that the true driver of exceptional success for great companies is not a genius CEO. Breakthrough success is driven by a particular breed of breakthrough team that generates its own momentum.
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