Strategic Innovation: Embedding Innovation as a Core Competency in Your Organization

CHAPTER NINE

Rewards and Recognition: The Informal Embedment Category

We all know that we get the behaviors that we measure, recognize, and reward. Going all the way back to the 1940s and 1950s, behavioral scientists have shown that people repeat behaviors that are rewarded—and avoid those that are not. In the quality movement of the 1980s and 1990s, they studied and leveraged the link joining attention, measurement, and focus.

The bottom line is that there is little chance a behavior will be a priority if you do not attend to it, measure it, and reward it. The dominant wisdom in most organizations today is that behavior is, at least in part, driven by the rewards and recognition it generates. If you want people to collaborate, you need to define ...