How to Get People to Do What You Want

Several studies conclude that positive reinforcement is
the best way to encourage better behavior. Two new
studies examine these concepts more and give us better
insight into why this works well.
Study 1: Punitive Consequences Encourage
Deception
A new study by the McGill researchers indicates that
kids lie to their parents when they face punishment.
When encouraged to tell the truth about misbehavior
without punishment, however, kids tell the truth. Victoria
Talway, a Child Psychology Professor, studied four- to
eight-year-olds, where participants were told not to peek
at a concealed toy when the adult left the room. If the
kids were told there would be a punishment, kids who
peeked would lie about it. If they were told not to peek
but if they did telling the truth would help the situation,
they confessed to peeking. Talway’s conclusion was
that kids lie to appease adults.
Related: Subconscious Clues That Call People to Action
(LinkedIn)
If you threaten your employees or Customers with
punitive action when they do something you don’t want,
you are potentially encouraging them to lie to you. While
you certainly aren’t their mom or dad, they might want to
appease you anyway. Unfortunately, you have two
problems here. First, they are still doing what you don’t
want. Second, they are lying to you, destroying the
relationship of trust you need to have a good experience
with them.
Study 2: Rewards Work Better Than Fines
Daniel Pink is a host of Crowd Control and wrote several
books on human behavior. He examined what is the best
way to discourage minor law breaking. He defined minor
law breaking as speeding, jaywalking and parking in
handicap spaces. Each of these offenses traditionally is
enforced with a fine sentence. What Pink discovered on
his show was offering incentives to comply with the
laws was far more effective than the threat of fines at
getting these wayward souls to change their lawbreaking
ways.
What he discovered was that by rewarding those not
speeding, he reduced speeding on the roadway by one-
third. He had similar results of improvement for other
experiments in jaywalking and handicapped parking
places.
Your Customers have behaviors that cost your
organization money. An excellent example is those
Customers that still want a paper statement. The costs
associated with sending a paper statement are
enormous for an organization, while electronic
statements are much less. When Customers get charged
for a paper statement, it’s annoying and generates
negative feelings toward the company, and rarely
encourages them to do what you want. If you reward
Customers for making the switch to eStatements,
however, they are far more likely to make the switch and
have positive feelings for doing so.
Related: Music: A Marketing Tool (LinkedIn)
Positive reinforcement is the key here. Human behavior
is driven by many factors, not the least of which is
emotional rewards and positive feelings. Play this
tendency to your advantage is the way to harness the
power of human behavior and use it to get the results
you want—and have them thank you for it afterward.
What ways have you used positive reinforcement over
punitive consequence to get the behavior you want from
employees and Customers? Please share your insight
with all of us in the comments.