It's The Little Things

Where I heard this story I can't recall, but it's stuck with me for years: a farmer somewhere in the Midwest increased his annual output simply by adding a counter to his hay baler. Before setting out with his men to harvest that year, he rigged a dinner bell so that it rang each time a bale was formed and loaded onto the platform. It created a sort of Pavlovian response in his men, who now had an audible gauge of their productivity and, it turned out, motivation to work faster.

In a huge leap of sophistication and only loosely tied with that last example, Volkswagen tried something similar in a Swedish mass transit station, turning stairwell steps into piano keys to encourage people to walk up to the street level rather than take the elevator. Take a look at the video.

Both of these examples point to the fact that humans are more eager to work toward a goal (even if what they're doing is mind-numbingly dull) if there's some sort of reward in store; the farm hands worked faster to hear the bell go off more frequently, and people took the stairs because it was fun/unusual. Clearly, even if the reward is cheap and easily attained, reward has the power to influence actions.

What could you change about or add to your business process to make people want to take part just for the experience, or to continue working with you because of the reward? I'll have some ideas for you in my next blog – ideas that go beyond the typical loyalty program.