Productivity. Every organization is interested in it, and nearly every manager is searching for ways to improve it.
Popular business books are full of advice on how to attract and retain "superstar" employees, control turnover by managing out the "deadwood", and design financial and non-financial incentives to drive productivity. I myself spend a great deal of time thinking about - and writing about - the relationship between incentive pay and productivity. But I recently came across a TED talk that has me questioning what I thought I knew.
In her talk entitled "Why It's Time to Forget the Pecking Order at Work", Margaret Heffernan begins by describing a productivity experiment with chickens. "Productivity" (measured by the number of eggs laid) was compared between two groups of chickens. One group - a typical flock - was left alone to do what chickens do for six generations. The other group - a flock of "superchickens" - study group, was created from only the most individually productive chickens. Only the most productive among the superchickens were selected for breeding over the course of the six generations.
At the end of the six generations, the average flock was doing fine - plump and fully feathered - and egg production had increased dramatically. Within the superflock, however, all but three chickens were dead - the rest had been pecked to death:
The individually productive chickens had only achieved their success by suppressing the productivity of the rest.
This struck an emotional chord in me... In our efforts to succeed, are we killing the very thing upon which that success depends?
The implications of this question reach deeply into the workforce, and into our lives. Particularly evident are the implications for how we measure and reward performance. We all intuitively know that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This has never been more true than in our current economic structure. In order to thrive in today's world, we have to recognize that what happens between people matters. It is the social capital, not hoarded and siloed human capital, that drives business results. We need to actively encourage, through our policies and practices, what Heffernan calls "a culture of helpfulness."
How do we do this? For some organizations, it's second nature. Zappos has four different peer-to-peer recognition programs. My Cafe colleague Ann Bares wrote about IGN's viral rewards program back in 2011! For the rest of us, it requires a change in our thinking. Peer-to-peer recognition is one logical place to start, but certainly not the ending point. We need to look at all of the relationships in the workplace across all hierarchical levels and functions.
The truth is that not everyone can be (or even wants to be!) a superstar. There is a much-needed role for key talent: those folks who aren't superstars, but good performers with specific knowledge and skills who simply cannot be replaced and without whom our organizations would suffer. There is also a role for the garden-variety strong performers who aren't superstars or key talent but who contribute to the organization in meaningful ways every day. Everybody matters, and at some point - whether we are superstars or not - we all are going to need help from the non-superstars in our organization.
Cultivating a flock of super chickens in your workplace can be dangerous. Healthy competition should be encouraged, but I think we can all agree that the following example, describing how one information technology specialist received a promotion, crosses a line:
I managed to crack the network messaging system so that I could monitor all the memos. I also sabotaged the workgroup software and set back the careers of a few computer-naive souls who didn't realize someone was manipulating their appointment calendars. They would miss important meetings and be sent on wild goose-chases, only to look like complete buffoons when they showed up for appointments that were never made.
How are your chickens - plump, fully feathered and laying eggs, or pecking each other to death?
Stephanie Thomas, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Cornell University and the Program Director for the Institute for Compensation Studies (ICS) at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Throughout her career, Stephanie has completed research on a variety of topics including wage determination, pay gaps and inequality, and performance-based compensation systems. She frequently provides expert commentary in a media outlets such as The New York Times, CBC, and NPR, and has published papers in a variety of journals.
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