by Meenakshi Sarkar, Metlife

When I was asked to form the L&D framework for MetLife in May 2008, I was taken by surprise.  It triggered many questions in my mind. The first of them being, “Why L&D, when we already have a robust sales training team?”.  That set me wondering if this would be one of those assignments where one could “just tick the box” to earn a few brownies from the top management by sending employees to MDPs at some top business school. The answers were many but none satisfactory. It was after, a few weeks into my role, that our team had a meeting with our MD Rajesh Relan, who gave us clarity on our mandate. Our challenge was to prepare a leadership pipeline which would be the very best in the industry, leave alone the company. He wanted us to transform people from Employees to Leaders, from Individual contributors to Game changers.

MetLife India, like many other Insurance companies too, has its own challenges.  We were growing at an unprecedented speed, expanding deep and wide, new departments were being opened and new roles being formed everyday just to name a few.  Our people were not prepared to deal with this rapid growth and change and there was no time to stop and oil the wheels. All work had to be done while the machine was on and working. The mandate was simple, and undoubtedly hard to perform. But we took up the challenge.

 The Learning & Development team at MetLife India today, is better known as Team MetTLE – MetLife Talent & Learning Enhancement. Mettle - signifies grit and determination that is unshakeable under all pressure. In being true to the name, the philosophy behind all our interventions is, ‘People are our chief assets and in people we will invest’. We strongly believe in the capabilities of our employees and want to build a healthy learning ecosystem to augment their skills, knowledge and potential.

When it comes to designing an intervention, we ‘begin with the end in mind’ by asking ourselves and our stakeholders questions like:

“By the end of this intervention:

What would you want the learners to be able to do (performance, competencies)

How well should they be able to do it (standards and measures)

And under what circumstances (given conditions, tools, situations)”

 

These questions help us to formulate the objectives of the program based on which the sessions are appropriately designed.

 

In our endeavor to be the best, we in Team Mettle find ourselves addressing the question of who we wish to partner with. Who is the best in this field that will not only know the subject matter, but also have a deep understanding of the realities of our industry and our Company? Who can understand the underlying issues we face and effectively drive home certain messages to the learners? In order to bring the very best to the employees we have partnered with many reputed consultants and training firms   like Hays, ODA, ISB & IIMs. We carefully brief each partner on the key deliverables from their end and the L&D Team members closely monitor them right from the development stage till the delivery of the session.

 

Mettle is now a year old, and in the past year, we have launched 2 flagship leadership development interventions – Leaders of Future (LOF) and Emerging Leaders (EL). As compared to many known leadership development programs in the past which finally turn out to be team building off sites, both these exclusive programs are for select high performing employees who are carefully handpicked by the management based on their performance and potential. These programs run for 6-8 months each and have been designed with care to ensure that the participants get to learn and experience various facets of leadership roles. Some of these roles which are required of them in the future are:  

• Importance of communicating the vision, aligning the core values and living them everyday and their role in the making of the organizational culture.
• Their personal Leadership styles and the effect of the same on the Organizational Climate.
• The importance of Strategy and how to align the same with Organizational mission & goals.

 For the Emerging leaders intervention we partnered with OD Alternatives who proposed a simple 3 stage training plan for the 3 connects on Leadership  namely, Lead Self , Lead Others, Lead Business. Post the second stage in the intervention we have observed a remarkable change in participants. For example some of the participants who were introverts by nature have opened up and started contributing more in the workplace, while many extroverts are showing more reserve, tolerance bringing effectiveness and balance in the workplace. What was aggression in one of the participants has turned into a fine assertiveness.  As an L&D professional it is truly heartening to see an intervention fulfilling its purpose which is - making a truly positive difference in people and helping achieve   organizational goals.

 

 

Executive coaching in India is catching up and more and more organisations are using coaches to build a leadership pipeline faster.

IBM has more than sixty certified coaches among its ranks worldwide and Microsoft has trained coaches in many locations. Scores of other major companies have made coaching a core part of executive development including Agilent, Nokia and Ericsson.  The belief is that, under the right circumstances, one-on-one interaction with an objective qualified third party can provide a focus that other forms of organizational support simply cannot.

There is a lot of confusion related to coaching, as this is relatively a new professional field. As the differentiating borders’ coaching has with mentoring, consulting and counseling can be narrow; ICF (International Coaches Federation) has come up with a definition. Here is what ICF says

 

Professional Coaching is an ongoing professional relationship that helps people produce extraordinary results in their lives, careers, businesses or  organizations. Through the process of coaching, clients deepen their learning, improve their performance, and enhance their quality of life. In each meeting, the client chooses the focus of conversation, while the coach listens and contributes observations and questions. This interaction creates clarity and moves the client into action. Coaching accelerates the client’s progress by providing greater focus and awareness of choice. Coaching concentrates on where clients are now and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be in the future, recognizing that results are a matter of the client’s intentions, choices and actions, supported by the coach’s efforts and application of the coaching process.

 

In an Indian context coaching could help in three ways.

 

1.Post Training Coaching. Large number of Indian organisations spend huge amount of money in Leadership and skill development programs. These programs are usually outsourced to external agencies or top B schools in the country. Following up coaching after these trainings will increase the ROI on these trainings and help participants implement the learning’s at the workplace. Prof Kirkpatrick who studied evaluation of training programs created a four step model evaluation model essentially measure:

          Reaction of student - what they thought and felt about the training

     Learning - the resulting increase in knowledge or capability

Behaviour - extent of behaviour and capability improvement and implementation/application

Results - the effects on the business or environment resulting from the trainee’s performance

 

Usually it is difficult to measure or most trainining initiatives at the moment do not measure the 3 and 4^th levels- the behavioural change or Business Results. Post training coaching and help in translating learning into work place applications thus creating positive results.

 

 

So, should you have a coach? And which managers in your sphere of responsibility might benefit from working with an outsider to help sharpen skills and overcome hurdles to better performance?

 

The right approach to answering these questions still varies a great deal depending on whom you ask, but input from several dozen coaches, and executives who have undergone coaching, does provide a useful framework for how to think about the role of coaching

2. Coaching with a Problem Resolution Focus. This can be to help specific executives to improve certain competencies or skills that are not helping them to grow within the organization. I hear a story of a senior executive who was not selected for the CEO’s post of a large telecom company, as after repeated feedbacks he could not improve his interpersonal skills and sensitivity. An executive coach would have been an ideal solution in this case. I also remember working with a newly joined sales head of a pharma company helping him to cope with the new culture and the team.  Most organisations do a training need analysis (TNA) and would find 2 people has a need to be more assertive, 3 people have a need to be more people oriented etc and they look for who could train them to improve these competencies. Coaching would be better option in these cases than training.

3. Coaching with a developmental Focus: Coaching is effective in developing leadership, supporting high potentials, and supporting senior management. This could be to enhance emotional intelligence, increase work life balance, adjust well in the new leadership role, managing the Board, managing ambiguity and business challenges etc. A large number of organisations provide coaches to their senior management with a developmental focus. We worked with a 12 member Executive Committee of a Telecome Circle coaching them for six months with a focus on supporting them in their business goals and work life balance.

Who can be a Coach: The  recent coach certification workshop we did had a CEO,  two HR heads two Training heads, one Marketing head and bunch of consultants, facilitators and trainers.  What we heard from them as reasons for entering into coaching were

1. They like people and want to bring out the best in them
2. They want to do something more fulfilling in their live.
3. They want personal and financial freedom
4. Their family, friends and colleagues previously turned to them for advice and help - they have natural ‘people’ skills

Over and above, understanding complex human behavior, organizational dynamics, inter personal and intra personal dynamics and professional training in the process of coaching is essential to be a good coach.

As India needs more Leadership talent, more CEOs and  more skilled workforce Executive coaching in India is going to bloom and grow in the coming years.

By Aparna Sharma, Director-HR UCB India Private Limited

Interviewed by: Mag. Sabine Edlinger-Starr

Q: Can you tell us something about the origins of personal coaching and the development of coaching over the past 14 years?

Yes, I became a professional coach in 1996 after completing a comprehensive coach training program. I was one of the first coaches in the world to be awarded the MCC designation (Master Certified Coach) by the ICF (International Coach Federation) in 1999.
The profession of coaching, as we know it today, started about 16 years ago. It was founded on a few principles that continue to guide the profession today. Some of these principles include:
1. There is a fundamental desire for people to know themselves better, explore their natural curiosities and express themselves in creative, productive and meaningful ways.
2. There is a benefit for people to have a helping professional to guide their self-exploration, and challenge their limiting beliefs and habits in a manner that does not impose another’s agenda.
3. Begin with the individual’s current life and focus on that individual’s creative process to move towards their personal and/or professional goals and aspirations.
4. Raising awareness allows an individual to make better plans and decisions in their personal and professional life.
The past 14 years have been expansive, fulfilling and gratifying. Coaching is successfully being used by virtually every type of human organization, including schools, businesses, governmental agencies, NGOs, prisons, communities, and health care organizations.

Q: Can anyone who needs support benefit from coaching?
Coaching schools and professional coaching associations, from the very beginning made it very clear that a coach is not trained to support an individual who is incapable of being responsible for creating their own life or making their own decisions. If a coach has not been trained in an area where a client needs support, we have an ethical responsibility to refer a client or prospective client to seek the appropriate helping professional.
For a client to be coachable
they must first be willing and able to
take responsibility for creating their own life.

Q: You have been instrumental in the foundation of the ICF, how did that come about?
I co-founded, Coach For Life, an accredited coach training school in 1996. As the co-founder of one of the eight coaching schools that existed in the United States in 1998, I was invited to join a group of coach training school executives and owners who were members of the ICF’s first Coaching Competencies Committee. During a year-long intensive collaboration we articulated what competencies a masterful coach needed to know and successfully perform.

Q: Is the ICF (International Coach Federation) a worldwide organization that all coaches belong to?
The ICF has over 16,000 members from over 90 countries. It is one of the oldest and internationally recognized coach membership associations in the world. The ICF has been a worldwide leader in establishing internationally-recognized credentials for coach certification and coach training accreditation. The ICF has clearly defined ethics and standards, as well as clearly articulated coaching competencies, a coaching definition, certification requirements, and training program accreditation requirements.

Q: As founder of one of the first ICF accredited coach training schools, what is the advantage for a student to choose an accredited coach training program?
The student will know that the ICF accredited program has met very stringent accreditation requirements and the training will be in alignment with the ICF ethics, competencies, and coaching definition. An ICF accredited program must also verify that it continues to meet all current accreditation requirements every three years.

Q: How would you characterize the development of coaching?
Every coaching client, regardless of the role they are in, has a personal life. The process of coaching supports the client to live a more conscious life. Organizations have found that coaching is highly effective. As a direct result more coaches in the world call themselves executive coaches, or business coaches, or leadership coaches in order to address the organizational demands for coaching services.

Q: Can you tell us some examples about how coaching is being used and what are some of the results?
There are coaches working in virtually every type of human organization. Most coaches are considered “external coaches” in that they are not employees of the organization but are contracted by an individual or the organization to coach one or more of the organization’s employees, managers or leaders. There are a growing number of organizations that have “internal coaches” who are employed by the organization to provide coaching services full time. Corporations use coaches for management and leadership development, for supporting the integration of training with follow up coaching and for team building and better communication.
There are a number of published research papers that show the ROI for the money spent on coaching services as one of the highest returns for professional development. Prestigious journals, such as the Harvard Business Review have presented research and/or survey-based articles on the use and effectiveness of coaching.

Q: Any final thoughts you would like to share on coaching’s future?
We have established a great foundation in the past 16 years for the coaching profession to build upon. The coaching profession supports healthy people who are ready to know them self better in order to live a more productive, creative, vibrant and meaningful life. The coaching process supports man’s most intrinsic need of self-knowing and self-expression. I believe coaching and the coaching profession has a very long and meaningful role for our world’s future.

* Editor’s note: The full English and German text article The Expanding Impact of Coaching and the Coaching Profession published in the “Psychology in Austria” quarterly journal “Psychologie in Österreich” 4/2009, Volume 29

 

By Peter J. Reding, MBA, MCC

Achievement… not a problem, making money…possible, getting that promotion…can make it happen. But being peaceful with oneself… Hmm difficult! This is true with many of us. Some of the world famous, rich celebrity singers could not get onto the stage without taking a high dose of drugs or could not sleep without the help sleeping pills! Successful, yes! Being at peace with oneself, No!

The very last Elvis Presley concert was held in June 1977 at Market square arena. From all accounts, it was a travesty of a show. Elvis was fat, half-dead, bloated and sweating, tossing soaked scarves into the audience, walking through cruel parodies of his songs. Nevertheless, some felt it was like being in the presence of a great man, an almost holy man. Other people just saw an overweight drug addict in his last, most pathetic performance. A few months later, Elvis died a junkie’s death, all alone, like junkies before and since. Yet he is a hero. Was he at peace with himself? I have no clue.

Life is the greatest roller coaster ride we will ever take. The ups and downs, the unexpected changes, the twists and turns, are all a part of living. The roller coaster ride of life can be miserable and uncomfortable or exciting and rewarding. Our states of mind and body are key factors to how we handle these changes. The problems of life do not go away magically. We have to consciously work on making our lives more positive and joyful.

Rule No 1. Accept that life is a roller coaster ride and take responsibility to make it joyful.
Try this exercise to cherish the positive moments in your life.
Were there moments in your childhood when you felt particularly happy? These moments can be from any age — from your earliest memories through young adulthood. When you find a golden memory, savor it. See yourself at that age and experiment with letting different senses reconnect to that happy time.
What was going on at that moment?
What were you feeling inside?
How did your body feel?
Were there any aromas?
How did things look around you?
How were you acting?
What was the weather like?
What was the scenery like?
Were you with anyone?
What was it like to be with that person?
Take time to really enjoy this happy memory. Now scan your memory bank and the most recent past, to see if you can think of one thing that you enjoyed doing in the last week. Give yourself permission to relive through your memory that pleasant time. Again, use all of your senses to reconnect you with that wonderful experience.

Rule No 2. Whatever may happen, you still have full control over your mind.
“If I’m creating this, then I’m certainly not doing it on purpose” people say. “It sure seems like this is HAPPENING to me, rather than I’m creating it”.

At times we just assume that it’s all because “this and these are going on for me, and I have no control over it. Anyone who thinks I’m creating this doesn’t understand what I’m going through”. Essentially, we are resigning ourselves to be a victim of the circumstances. We live in a universe of infinite complexity and many forces – way too many to keep track of – operate on us. Yes, it’s true that we are NOT in control of everything that happens, because we are not in control of most of those infinite other parts of the universe. In fact, the only thing you have total and complete control over is your own mind. That is, if you learn how to exercise it

Luckily, this one thing – your mind – that you do have control over gives you tremendous power. By exercising control over your mind, you can get the rest of those infinite other parts of the universe to begin to march in formation.
With our passage into 2000, we seemed to hit the hollow ground between achieving success and feeling successful. We know we need to redefine success beyond the material, but that, frankly, is easier said than done. The following points will help you clarify your assumptions about success and separate myth from reality.
Narrow focus/singular goal vs. diverse roles/multiple goals
Is your life oriented around one particular goal?
Do you make time for interests and friends outside work?
Are you postponing important personal decisions pending?
Many of the participants in my workshops consider themselves to be highly competitive and ambitious professionals; then, in the same breath, will admit that they never have time or energy for the pursuits that satisfy them. When I ask if their ambition gives them satisfaction, they give a perplexed shrug. Competitive ambition does generate a certain heat and fervor that can feel like pleasure, but when this pleasure comes at the expense of deeply meaningful relationships, activities, and interests, then the effect is negative.

Rule No 3. Identify your core values and see what you do is aligned with these values.
Values and Value Hierarchies
Values are your private, personal, and individual beliefs about what are more important to you. They are the bases that define our responses to any given situation in life. They are often emotional states we move towards or away from.
ACHIEVEMENT (sense of accomplishment by means of skills, practice, perseverance, or exertion)
ADVANCEMENT (moving forward in your career through promotions)
ADVENTURE (work which frequently involves risk taking)
AESTHETICS (involved in studying or appreciating the beauty of ideas, things, etc…)
AUTONOMY (working independently, determine the nature of your work without significant direction from others)
CARING (love, affection)
CHALLENGE (stimulates full use of your potential)
CHANGE & VARIETY (varied, frequently changing work responsibilities and/or work settings)
COMPETITION (Pit your abilities against others where there is clear win/lose outcomes)
COOPERATION (opportunity to work as a team toward common goals)
CREATIVITY (being imaginative, innovative)
ECONOMIC SECURITY (having enough money)
EXCITEMENT (experience a high degree of, or frequent excitement in your work)
FAMILY HAPPINESS (being able to spend quality time and develop relationships with family of origin, or family by marriage)
FRIENDSHIP (develop close personal relationships)
HEALTH (physical and psychological well being)
HELP OTHERS (be involved in helping people in a direct way, individually or in a group.)
HELP SOCIETY (do something to contribute to the betterment of the world)
INNER HARMONY (being at peace with oneself)
INTEGRITY (sincerity and honesty)
INTELLECTUAL STATUS (be regarded as an expert in your field)
KNOWLEDGE (understanding gained through study and experience)
LEADERSHIP (influence over others)
LEISURE (have time for hobbies, sports, activities and interests)
LOCATION (place conducive to your lifestyle and allows you to do the things you enjoy most)
LOYALTY (steadfastness and allegiance)
PLEASURE (enjoyment)
POWER (authority)
RESPONSIBILITY (being accountable for results)
RECOGNITION (getting acknowledged for your contribution)
STABILITY (work routine and duties that are largely predictable, not likely to change over a long period of time)
TIME FREEDOM (work according to your own time schedule, no specific work hours required)
WEALTH (profit, gain, making a lot of money)
WISDOM (understanding based on accumulation of knowledge)
Among the above-mentioned what all are important to you? Which ones are more important than others?
Are you doing something that satisfies the values that you have? Else you may experience conflicts.
What are your core values? How could you do something that satisfies your core values? Is the job that you are in satisfying your values? If not what is it that you could do about it?

Rule No 4. Love yourself.
You need to love yourself for whatever you are and learn to accept how you look and what you do. You could decide to change the way you look but that is for improvement. But at the moment you just love what you have.
Love Yourself Exercise #1:
At least once a day, look in the mirror, look into your eyes, and say, “I love you (your name), just the way you are!” Repeat this a few times and become aware of the feelings in your heart. You may feel weepy or want to cry. That’s fine. Cry if you can. Try to conjure up feelings of love in your heart as you say, “I love you!”
Love Yourself Exercise #2:
Stand naked in front of a mirror. Look at your body and see how you feel about it. Do you like the way it looks or do you wish you looked differently than you do? Are you proud of your body or are you ashamed of it? Listen to your inner dialogue as you look at your body. Don’t try to change your thoughts, just listen.
Tell your body you love it and that you are trying to accept it exactly the way it is.
Love Yourself Exercise #3:
Anytime during the day that you think of it, say to yourself, “I unconditionally love and accept myself, just the way I am.”

While on my way to the airport, post a workshop with a group of doctors in Chennai, one of them - the process owner, mentioned that given the pace in the medical  scenario it will not be long before each person, who can afford, will be able to have his own ‘organ farm’! Meaning he will have his own spare heart, liver, which ever organ, he chooses to afford to have ready to transplant.  Wow that kind of sums up the pace of changes we have never seen before. Technological speed is moving at a speed where one begins to wonder where this may lead to. Internet has given us instant access to what we need and much more which is taking us from the information age to the conceptual age (Daniel Pink, 2008)

There is the virtual market presence or share we compete for, now. Being able to sit at my preferred location and connect with coaching clients, from any part of the globe, at a convenient time, makes for a totally different understanding of time and space. While the basics of business, of making profit, remain quite the same, this too has seen its fair shift from understanding of managing ‘business’ to understanding the managing of its ‘human quotient’. It is in this management of organization we see coaching used for managing performance.

With one end at using the carrot strategy or ‘soft’ development and the other end using the ‘stick’ or ‘hard’ (‘measurement’) techniques most organizations have placed their Performance Management policies somewhere in between (Hay Group, 2006). The traditional way has been through performance appraisal where employee is measured and evaluated. This is where the process begins to dent.


Josh Bersin (Article: The Death of the Performance Appraisal - Redefining Performance Management):
We all know that most performance appraisals do not work - our research shows that only 35% of organizations have such an enterprise-wide process and among these fewer than 40% of employees find the process valuable and fewer than 45% of HR managers find the process valuable.  I cannot remember more than one performance appraisal in my entire career (30+ years) which was valuable.


“It is important to separate feedback for the purpose of development from evaluation feedback. Mixing the two in one conversation waters down the impact of the feedback…it is little wonder that development planning that is based on these reviews often fails to hit the mark.” (Dianna Anderson & Merill Anderson: Coaching that Counts, 2005, pg. 127)
The focus clearly suggests the need to shift from ‘measurement’ leading to what’s wrong against ‘development’ leading to ‘develop’ what’s working. Traditionally the focus was to look at areas that needed improvement and thus a ‘problem’ that needed fixing. Focusing on what’s wrong evokes feelings of discouragement and maybe shame. “Tomkins’s idea that shame counters the movement towards engagement…acts as inhibitor is central.” (Mary Ayers: Mother-infant Attachment and Psychoanalysis, 2003, pg. 25). [Sylvan’s affect theory, 1963]

In the mid-eighties, David Cooperrider, Suresh Srivastva and their colleagues at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA challenged the traditional problem solving approach to managing change. They introduced “Appreciative Inquiry”. This positive and affirming approach is widely used by organizations to effect positive changes. It has lent itself to the arena of coaching. Coaches have used its strategy to identify the best of “what is” to pursue dreams and possibilities of “what could be”. This inquiry strategy leads them to gain a heightened awareness of their ‘strengths’, gifts’, abilities, skills that bolsters their confidence to overcome trials, increase  their effectiveness and achieve their goals.

Coaching is proving to be a significant factor in sustaining the impact and transformation that comes about through training leading to productivity and profitability - the bottom line for any business. Through training an average increase in productivity reflects only 22.4% and when followed up with coaching, it soars to 88% (Public Personnel Management Magazine, 1997). In Huthwaite’s work with Xerox Corporation, they proved that in the absence of follow-up coaching and reinforcement, 87% of the skills change brought about by even the best sales training is lost. Coaching therefore becomes an essential tool for employees at all performance levels even moving from ‘Good to Great’ ©.

By R. Anand, Head Organizational Effectiveness Verticle at HCL Technologies.

A good theory is nothing but condensed practice is a wise old phrase. The HR profession too is a practice, much like medicine.

In the world of medicine, there is foundational stuff that one learns at school, followed by lots of apprenticeship and supervised work before one sets up an independent practice. It is expected that good medical practitioners draw upon advances in the theory of medicine and bring it to the practice of medicine.

Does this happen in HR?

Exploring this question is the purpose of this article.

Firstly, what are the theoretical underpinnings of HR, the practice?

Human Psychology – Cognitive, behavioral, developmental; Group Psychology; Sociology; Micro-economic theory; Game Theory are foundational to the HR practice. What are some of the advances in these fields and how do they inform the practice of HR? Do we decide differently, work differently and communicate differently as a result of these insights?

Here are some opportunity areas in my view.

Human Psychology

What moves me as an individual, (the way I comprehend or learn) is different from someone else is the basic discovery of human psychologists. “Different strokes for different folks” is a cliché, in psychology. The good news is that they can be ascertained for an individual. Also, being formed in early childhood are constant. In the practice of HR, however, very little attempt has been made to incorporate the phenomena in talent development frameworks – whether learning management or career management. We simply have one single process.

You will notice, on the contrary, the practitioner of medicine carefully avoiding prescriptions that cause allergic reactions, giving a dosage proportionate to body mass, carefully calibrating medical history in the treatment course

Group Dynamics

Meetings, brainstorming, deciding in a group setting are the first images of an office to anyone. The theory of group psychology lists some definitive aspects that characterize groups and make them fulfilling or unfulfilling places. Norms, the unwritten rules of group functioning are powerful drivers of group culture, decision making and output. Very innocent events and group leaders’ visible response to these events are norm setters. The immediate aftermath of group formation is also an opportunity to set the right norms. In my view, we do not seize this moment as HR to set the norms. In fact, our time allocation to a group is much the same whether the group is in the stage of formation or if the group is functioning for a long time. Grave errors have happened due to “group think” and “freeze think” phenomena in groups.

Observe, how the doctor is sensitive to if it is early stage fever and how it can be infection prone; how she observes what happened if you did this and notes them down for effective intervention

Sociology, Behavioral Economics

The field of sociology is central to understanding and exploring the human condition. Our identities, the prisms through which we see ourselves and the world are so socially constructed. Social norms are powerful forces that can help me give much more than what monetary incentives can give. I will quote two experiments, one natural and another “a lab” situation from two popular economic books.

A day care center in New Jersey was pretty annoyed that parents are not coming on time to pick up their children. The staff had to wait till all children have been picked up and then only can go home. They were determined to find a solution to this. The parents, of course are quite apologetic when they arrive late, blame the traffic, the boss, the workload and promise to be on time. The center in their wisdom began to impose a dollars’ fine for every 5 minutes of delay. Much to their surprise, the late coming increased.

In a “lab” in MIT, volunteers were asked to drag circles on the screen into a box, which then vanish. The game was how many circles they will be able to drag into the box in 5 minutes. Group 1 was paid 10 USD for this effort; group 2 was paid 50 cents. Group 1 on an average dragged 158, group 2 not surprisingly dragged 105. The surprise was group 3, who were just asked to participate in the experiment, no money was paid. They dragged 163.

Why did they happen?

Behavioral economics is a new interdisciplinary field whose central thesis is that human beings are not rational, but irrational, however their irrationality is predictable. For example, even though 10 dollar is better than 50 cents and that is the reason why the average points were higher; social requests for a favor are very powerful indeed to harness human effort. When, inadvertently your incentive system (like in the first example), destroys the social currency and substitutes with a poor monetary incentive, productivity falls. I have known, heard of innumerable instances where the HR professional feels smart about allocating 2% and 5% of a variable pay to the so many behaviors one must make happen in the system that nothing works.

Like the practitioner of medicine, who is sensitive to the mind-body interaction in health, or the phenomenon of psycho-somatic disorders, the professional of human resources practice must similarly comprehend the different worlds that move the human person and consider their interactions.

Like medicine, let us make our practice as robust that we will both leverage and add to the theory behind HR.