Competition vs. Habit: 1:0 in company’s favor

InformUnity’s CEO shares his experience on how to motivate the team to keep up with the new policies and make it a really fun adventure

The power of habit

Have you ever noticed that people do a lot of things simply out of habit?  Home — work — back home, the script repeats itself daily. Usually, your employees are also used to a certain schedule and meet even minor changes with deep hostility. For the company's leader, bringing changes to life can become quite a challenging process, that requires sharpness of thought and unconventional wisdom.

Let’s have a look at a specific example. Imagine an average web-studio. Every day its developers work with tasks, which are duly opened and closed, but sometimes not the way you expected and not always on time. Why does this happen? Usually, the manager describes the task incoherently. The developer has his own vision of how this problem can be solved. As a result, the manager gets his feedback only at the meeting.

The problem has an obvious solution: people should communicate in the comments section inside the task-manager. The idea seems great, you finalize the policy, introduce it to your colleagues and... nothing happens, because people are so used to their old ways. They tend to execute the task as they understand it and go straight to the manager with any questions, while the manager gets a queue in front of his office and a headache. Plus, most developers are introverts so they are not that fond of communication in general.

Competitive spirit vs inertness

So, there's a significant gap between the moment you announce the new policy and the moment people start following it. You can make arguments and give reasons, but nothing will change. Disciplinary action, like dismissal, make employees less effective and flag the spirits all over the company, and this is directly opposite to what we aim to achieve. Maybe, you should give them a bonus? But wait... bonus for following the rules — isn’t that the job anyway?

Fortunately, there's a better way. Everybody is into sports, and the competitive spirit brings out the thrill of the race. All you have to do is help people put these qualities under the spotlight. In this case, an internal competition not only helps you implement the new policy but also makes this process go quickly and smoothly.

Competitive spirit

First of all, you should specify the main purpose of the contest. In this case, it's to implement the new policies. The main goal affects how long the contest lasts. The habit should have enough time to form, while the participants should not get bored. It seems that a month meets both of these requirements.

Now it's time to elaborate on the scoring system. Define several levels of grading, for example:

  • A person achieves the first (basic) level if s/he achieves the main goal of the day. For example, if a participant executes more than 80% of tasks per day s/he gets 2 points.

  • The second (targeted) level — if s/he overfulfilles the plan by 5% per day. In this case, the participant gets 3 points.

  • The third (hard-to-reach) level — if the developer noticed a mistake in somebody else's work and fixed it, which led to product improvement and let the company eliminate the problem forever. In this ideal and really hard-to-reach case, the participant gets 5 points. Usually, this metric helps to reveal the hidden treasures, but be careful — the example above is quite subjective, and you should always remember about transparency.

As a result, a participant can gain up to 10 points per day. The first level is the easiest one. It can be achieved only by following the rules. Even if an employee cannot reach more than this, the thrill of the race pushes him/her to achieve at least basic results to keep up with the rest.

All the participants should find themselves on the same footing and understand the evaluation criteria very clearly. Then you must establish a jury committee to address all debatable issues. Instead of a whole committee, you can choose a person who is not involved in the competition and has no personal interest in anyone in particular. The committee or the single person is to inform the employees about how the contest is going. Enter the data daily so that the participants see their results in real time.

Chart with interim results

A chart with interim results

The best motivation is the prize, of course, and it'd better be something real and meaningful: a bicycle, an annual gym membership, a gift certificate for a trip abroad. Use your imagination, the results are worth it. Remember: one big prize is better than three small ones.

Well-earned reward

Once you've made all necessary preparations, go ahead and launch the competition. Presentation means a lot: make a loud announcement, explain all the details. For the first few days you should work on the involvement process. When the participants are duly drawn in and you feel the competitive spirit, you can exhale. From now on, the process goes by itself. Don't forget to show the subtotal results, though.

The competition is on the right track, the employees are happy and work with passion, productivity is up and the new policy sneaks in to become an integral part of the daily routine. Just within a month, you've changed the process that people were hanging on to for years. Now prize your winners!

Be creative, and the sky is your limit.

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