“Look Who Decided to Join Us”

Everyone would love to adjust the behaviors of those around them. Whether it’s tiny changes or enormous ones, you have things you wish other people did differently. And using your many powers as a thinking human, you can effect these changes in a variety of ways: you can use the power of persuasion, you can climb to positions of power and authority, or you can even directly incentivize these behaviors.

But I’m going to tell you something else you can do, and it’s as effective as any of those – maybe more. You can stop punishing the very behavior you want to see.

You do this. You don’t even realize it, but you do it.

First, let’s examine what I mean by “punish,” because without the proper definition, you’re going to miss the whole point. A “punishment” is literally anything that makes someone feel bad. It doesn’t have to be something you did with the intent to punish. It just has to be something you did that made someone feel worse than they’d feel if you hadn’t.

Why are their feelings more important than your intent in this case? Because they’re the ones deciding their behavior. And they aren’t deciding how to act around you based on your intent – they’re deciding how to act based on their feelings. So if you wan someone to act a certain way, it’s in your best interests to make them feel better when they do so, not worse.

Want some examples? Sure you do.

Here’s the classic one: A sullen teenager, often isolating herself from her immediate family, emerges from her room to take dinner with her parents and siblings. The father calls out sarcastically: “Well, look who finally decided to join us!” He wanted her to join, but the second she did, he mocked her. Does she feel good about the decision to join the family for dinner, or is she even more convinced that the right course of action is isolation?

Here’s another: An employee has a good suggestion about improving something in the workplace or some other helpful tidbit, so he proactively contacts his boss. She listens, but then says, “Oh, while I have you, what’s up with your TPS reports lately? You really need to improve these.” That feedback might be correct and even warranted, but by delivering it at that time, the boss just punished the employee for reaching out. The employee feels like “Geez, I call up to make a helpful suggestion and I get chewed out over my reports? Last time I’ll do that.”

Sometimes the changes you want other people to make – like spending more time with the family or being proactive at work – happen gradually. But they do happen, so when they do, you need to strongly encourage them. Not punish the very behaviors you’ve been hoping for.