What Gets Recognized and Rewarded
Is What Gets Done
Many years ago, early in his career, my brother Steve was working for a major entertainment conglomerate in their TV syndication department. Part of his job was to input data to a computer from various handwritten reports. One of five workers responsible for performing this tedious task day in and day out, for some reason, at the end of each day, everyone else had completed their allotted workload…except for Steve, as his paperwork continued to pile up on his desk.
On top of all of that, his supervisors would approach him and say, “You really need to speed things up. We don’t know what’s taking you so long, but everyone else always seems to be able to complete their workload by the end of the day, except for you.”
Steve couldn’t figure it out either. He was as competent and capable and diligent as any of them. So, why was he lagging so far behind?
Eventually, he discovered the answer. The issue had nothing to do with anything he was doing; it had to do with what he wasn’t doing that everyone else was.
While Steve was diligent in making sure that he was accurately and completely inputting every single report assigned to him, it turned out that his coworkers were far less conscientious. In fact, it turned out that at the end of the day, they stuffed any and all unfinished paperwork into their backpacks, snuck it out of the office, and unceremoniously dumped it into the trash on their way home!
Upon learning this, Steve at least felt somewhat vindicated in knowing that he was not the problem. But now that he knew this…what to do about it? Join the club—sacrificing his integrity, but at least getting his boss off his back? Become a whistleblower, thereby proving to his bosses that he was not the problem? (Although he doubted that his bosses would even care, anyway, as long as they didn’t have to see the work piling up.) Or keep doing what he was doing, and continue to bear the wrath of his bosses for his underperformance?
It’s an interesting and challenging dilemma, but in the end, being a person of integrity, Steve just kept doing what he was doing, until he eventually found himself another job.
This is one of those stories that sounds like the movie Office Space, featuring the infamous TPS reports. But things like this actually happen…and then we wonder why the majority of employees in the workplace are disengaged.
Steve’s story always brings to mind three of Peter Drucker’s most well-known quotes:
1. “What gets recognized and rewarded is what gets done.”
Steve’s supervisors were recognizing and rewarding speed, with no regard at all for accuracy. Or integrity. Or any sense of purpose relative to the work at hand. It was just a meaningless task. And seeing as the only thing the supervisors seemed to care about was whether the workers ended their shift with a clear desk, that’s exactly what they got.
2. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
Similarly, Steve’s supervisors measured success not by the quality of the work that was being done, but simply by the quantity of the work completed. And, by “completed,” that meant that there were no reports left over…regardless of why that was. As long as everyone was able to “check their boxes” and cover their behinds, that was all that mattered.
3. “Management is about doing things right; leadership is about doing the right thing.”
Steve’s colleagues were being managed (poorly) and, most definitely, not being led. Everyone—except for Steve—failed to “do things right”…or do what anyone with a moral compass would consider “the right thing.”
When it comes to balancing “doing things right” and “doing the right thing,” everyone wants everything done “better, faster, and cheaper,” but you can’t always have all three; you sometimes need to prioritize. You can have things done “right” or you can have them done “right now,” but you can’t always have it both ways. Ultimately, it all comes down to priorities…and values. And, without either—and, especially, without clear leadership—companies are going to get what they deserve.
If, at the end of the day, all that these managers care about is their staff leaving the office with a clean desktop, they might as well just toss their work directly into the trash right now and save them (and yourself) the time and trouble. But if a manager wants things done right—and the right things done—then they need to recognize and reward both productivity and performance.
Jim Collins, the author of the classic management book Good to Great, put it this way: “Don’t discipline people. Hire self-disciplined people and give them the freedom and responsibility to act, within the framework of a highly developed system.
Unfortunately, based on Steve’s experience—and mine—it seems that companies don’t always follow such advice.
In Review
The Big Lesson: Be both aware and intentional regarding how you define responsibilities, assign tasks, and determine incentives, because how you do will directly influence what you get.
The Big Question: What lessons can you take from Steve’s story, and have you ever been in a similar situation? What did, or what would you have done? And in light of Drucker’s idea that recognition and rewards can strongly influence what gets done, how can you apply these principles to your own workplace so as to get the right things done the right way?
Your Big Action:
Your Big Insight: