Sometimes I have to get on my soap box about rewarding the wrong behavior.

This is a classic example. You have two performers, and each is expected to complete 100 widgets in two hours. One of them is slow, and one is very efficient. Susie, who does 120 widgets versus Sally who does 80 widgets. The bottom line is that the goal of the unit is achieved, however one person over performed and one person underperformed.

This is where the rewarding of the wrong behavior gets me. The novice leader will be satisfied with the overall performance, and will “allow” Sally to continue underperforming, as long as he or she has Susie on board. And when there becomes a crunch time, when more work needs to get done for some emergency reason, who does the leader go to? The high performer.  Susie.

Sally gets off scott free. So what happened right there was that Susie was rewarded with MORE work! So the message is, do a great job, and you’ll have to do more of a great job.  You get to do more work.

Drives me nuts.

What I would have preferred to see happen was that Sally be given the motivation, training, coaching to get her production up to 100 widgets, instead of falling back on the high performer to make up the slack. In an ideal world, Susie should be given some time off, or another reward because she overproduces. Perhaps a performance bonus, perhaps special acknowledgment. Instead, in our quest to get things done, we fail our super performers by giving them more work.

Have you ever seen this happen? Have you done it yourself? What will you do differently next time?

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