Carrots or Sticks?

The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, is suggesting that the conservatives may adopt a successful American ploy of rewarding people for recycling. Apparently a number of US cities have introduced this measure with great success. Rewarding people for recycling changes behaviour and the poorest citizens suddenly become green, instead of it being the preserve of the middle classes. The reward is paid for in the savings in landfill charges so everyone wins; the environment, the poor, and the city! It feels a much more palatable proposal than fining us for throwing away too much or putting chips in our bins.

I think it provides an interesting insight into the human psyche; give us a positive motivation for doing something and we will probably comply; threaten and punish us if we are ‘bad’ and we seek to avoid and evade. Successful change, whether it is at a corporate or personal level requires a positive incentive to make that step. If you are trying to bring about a change in your own life, like perhaps shed the odd pound or two, or get fitter, then find something besides the end goal that makes you feel good about it. Notice how much better you are looking now, how much more comfy those trousers are etc.

What motivates you to do something different?

“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.” Mark Twain

Resources:

1. The Guardian story

Tags: Change, motivation, punishment, rewards

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 09:30 and is filed under Business Change, Leadership, Personal Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.