Many reality TV shows, like Project Runway, Hell’s Kitchen, or Survivor, focus on punishing the worst, instead of rewarding the best. Not only do viewers seem to find that more interesting, it actually works better to incentivize performance (many quotes below). Punishment works better to encourage lone behavior, to encourage behavior in a group, and as a tool for letting some group members encourage others.
I believe rewarding the best is a modern concept relative to punishing the worst. An old timer once believed in "punishing the worst" because people shouldn't be rewarded for what is already expected. Rewards should only be given in highly exceptional circumstances.
I'll remark that this is obviously dumb from a statistical learning perspective; someone who comes in 9th of 10th place when the 10-place person is a previous high performer and the whole team is stacked with high performers, is doing pretty well. SVD with a single factor would catch this!
Surely the inability of the jury (all fans I presume) to recognize Charlie Chaplin or acknowledge his perfect mannerisms and appearance is a blow to the idea of unique superstars, or at least our ability to recognize such talents and that is a warning to not award too much to a single champion or small group of champions. Ayn Rand's "producers" are a myth, yet capitalism is largely based on a similar idea...
There's a bit more to the Charlie Chaplain story... the contest was to imitate Chaplain's famous "Tramp" character, and, unlike the winner, Chaplain didn't have a costume.
The additional marginal product of effort is FAR higher on the highest performing employees. Ideally, you'd want to incentivize each person to work hard, but let's suppose for some reason you can either reward at the top, or punish at the bottom. Rewarding at the top encourages the top 10% or so to try to be in the top 1%, and punishing at the bottom encourages the bottom 10% not to be the bottom 1%. In the first case, the total gain to productivity for the firm is very high, but in the latter case, the gain is neglible. You don't even need morale in the model.
I can't resist linking to a memorable scene in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, where the character played by Alec Baldwin announces the company's decision to fire the seller with the fewest sales.
My thoughts after a really quick look at the quotes and their origins:
First study was looking at whether knowing that you will lose something that you have or knowing that you might potentially win something works better. This is far far different than looking at whether being rewarded or being punished produces better results in subsequent behavior (which is what the post argues for). You can see the difference I assume?
After looking at the second study it seems like they found that negative feedback starts to activate the brain more as you get older (with a similar strength as positive feedback) but did not find that negative feedback produced better results as the article that you quote claims.
Third study doesn't argue your point. I guess the closest thing is 'Social dilemma … experiments have [also] found that punishment is generally more effective than rewards in terms of promoting cooperation between subjects in voluntary contribution games.' This is the only condition under which arguably punishment has real benefits (according to the study) over rewards and forgive me but are you really talking about ' promoting cooperation between subjects in voluntary contribution games'? Seems to me that the situations where you argue that punishment is better than reward are not of this nature nor is this the benefit that you are looking for.
4th study hasn't convinced me either but I cannot be bothered to search for all the studies (since you've linked to articles describing them instead of linking to the papers) so I will accept it. However, again the study's findings not fully applicable in the situations which you are describing
The 5th study only barely argues your point as well.
On the other hand, as long as people know they're comfortably not the worst, there's much less incentive to excel. Presumably this is usually outweighed by the fact that punishing is cheaper for the same effect, but it's worth noting.
Based on the comments, it seems as if it might be helpful to distinguish explicitly between punishments involving a high degree of shame (e.g., being the lone contestant ejected from a reality show) and punishment where the role of shame isn't so great (e.g., having to return a bonus or being denied a possible raise). I suspect most of the bad effects of punishment as a motivator/management technique can be greatly reduced if shame isn't a large part of the punishment.
However, Robin's post is indeed about 'punishing the worst.' That's not 'punish the bad,' but the worst. That is exactly Stack Ranking.
It comes about because there isn't really any objective measure that can easily be used for most of these things, that actually gets at what should be done. 'Objective' Teacher evaluations are generally shit (not measuring teaching and pressuring towards test-taking), and the same goes for evaluations of creativity etc. in a company, especially when it's team-based work. Thus, we get subjective rankings, which have the various problems that Stack Ranking had.
Stack Ranking and various 'punish the worst' evaluation mechanisms are terrible for morale and overall effectiveness, however they're great entertainment. You get to see fear, backbiting, betrayal, backstabbing, naked ambition, and all these other things that make for interesting stories. Reality TV shows use mechanisms similar to Stack Ranking precisely because they're completely terrible at encouraging people to get things done in a reasonable and cooperative manner. Cooperation is bad TV.
Perhaps the problem is that people are not measured by an independent norm (which they could all pass), but against each other (so by definition someone always fails). Also it creates bad incentives -- you don't want to work with the best people, because it will make *you* the worst one in the team (and I guess the punishment for being the worst in the team was greater than the reward for being a member of a good team).
I would call it a misunderstanding and a bad implementation of the rule. Punishing people who violate tribe norms can result in a happy equilibrium where everyone follows the norms. Cooperation in a Prisonners' Dilemma! But there is no such happy solution in Microsoft... and the people are well aware of it.
I believe rewarding the best is a modern concept relative to punishing the worst. An old timer once believed in "punishing the worst" because people shouldn't be rewarded for what is already expected. Rewards should only be given in highly exceptional circumstances.
I'll remark that this is obviously dumb from a statistical learning perspective; someone who comes in 9th of 10th place when the 10-place person is a previous high performer and the whole team is stacked with high performers, is doing pretty well. SVD with a single factor would catch this!
Surely the inability of the jury (all fans I presume) to recognize Charlie Chaplin or acknowledge his perfect mannerisms and appearance is a blow to the idea of unique superstars, or at least our ability to recognize such talents and that is a warning to not award too much to a single champion or small group of champions. Ayn Rand's "producers" are a myth, yet capitalism is largely based on a similar idea...
There's a bit more to the Charlie Chaplain story... the contest was to imitate Chaplain's famous "Tramp" character, and, unlike the winner, Chaplain didn't have a costume.
I agree, but in my experience it's quite common.
"The additional marginal product of effort is FAR higher on the highest performing employees."
That really depends on the specifics.
The additional marginal product of effort is FAR higher on the highest performing employees. Ideally, you'd want to incentivize each person to work hard, but let's suppose for some reason you can either reward at the top, or punish at the bottom. Rewarding at the top encourages the top 10% or so to try to be in the top 1%, and punishing at the bottom encourages the bottom 10% not to be the bottom 1%. In the first case, the total gain to productivity for the firm is very high, but in the latter case, the gain is neglible. You don't even need morale in the model.
On my blog, I reward good commenters with replies, and delete the terrible ones, so it's two sided.
I can't resist linking to a memorable scene in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, where the character played by Alec Baldwin announces the company's decision to fire the seller with the fewest sales.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
My thoughts after a really quick look at the quotes and their origins:
First study was looking at whether knowing that you will lose something that you have or knowing that you might potentially win something works better. This is far far different than looking at whether being rewarded or being punished produces better results in subsequent behavior (which is what the post argues for). You can see the difference I assume?
After looking at the second study it seems like they found that negative feedback starts to activate the brain more as you get older (with a similar strength as positive feedback) but did not find that negative feedback produced better results as the article that you quote claims.
Third study doesn't argue your point. I guess the closest thing is 'Social dilemma … experiments have [also] found that punishment is generally more effective than rewards in terms of promoting cooperation between subjects in voluntary contribution games.' This is the only condition under which arguably punishment has real benefits (according to the study) over rewards and forgive me but are you really talking about ' promoting cooperation between subjects in voluntary contribution games'? Seems to me that the situations where you argue that punishment is better than reward are not of this nature nor is this the benefit that you are looking for.
4th study hasn't convinced me either but I cannot be bothered to search for all the studies (since you've linked to articles describing them instead of linking to the papers) so I will accept it. However, again the study's findings not fully applicable in the situations which you are describing
The 5th study only barely argues your point as well.
On the other hand, as long as people know they're comfortably not the worst, there's much less incentive to excel. Presumably this is usually outweighed by the fact that punishing is cheaper for the same effect, but it's worth noting.
Based on the comments, it seems as if it might be helpful to distinguish explicitly between punishments involving a high degree of shame (e.g., being the lone contestant ejected from a reality show) and punishment where the role of shame isn't so great (e.g., having to return a bonus or being denied a possible raise). I suspect most of the bad effects of punishment as a motivator/management technique can be greatly reduced if shame isn't a large part of the punishment.
I think most online forums are moderated in a way where the worst posters get banned and there isn't that much to reward the good posters.
Reward the best has exactly the same problem of only looking at relative performance. But people like it a lot more.
However, Robin's post is indeed about 'punishing the worst.' That's not 'punish the bad,' but the worst. That is exactly Stack Ranking.
It comes about because there isn't really any objective measure that can easily be used for most of these things, that actually gets at what should be done. 'Objective' Teacher evaluations are generally shit (not measuring teaching and pressuring towards test-taking), and the same goes for evaluations of creativity etc. in a company, especially when it's team-based work. Thus, we get subjective rankings, which have the various problems that Stack Ranking had.
Stack Ranking and various 'punish the worst' evaluation mechanisms are terrible for morale and overall effectiveness, however they're great entertainment. You get to see fear, backbiting, betrayal, backstabbing, naked ambition, and all these other things that make for interesting stories. Reality TV shows use mechanisms similar to Stack Ranking precisely because they're completely terrible at encouraging people to get things done in a reasonable and cooperative manner. Cooperation is bad TV.
Perhaps the problem is that people are not measured by an independent norm (which they could all pass), but against each other (so by definition someone always fails). Also it creates bad incentives -- you don't want to work with the best people, because it will make *you* the worst one in the team (and I guess the punishment for being the worst in the team was greater than the reward for being a member of a good team).
I would call it a misunderstanding and a bad implementation of the rule. Punishing people who violate tribe norms can result in a happy equilibrium where everyone follows the norms. Cooperation in a Prisonners' Dilemma! But there is no such happy solution in Microsoft... and the people are well aware of it.