When You’re Teaching
The methods for explaining natural consequences that we’ve just examined are easy to apply when we’re first informing people about the reason behind a specific action. Employees want to know why they have to produce products and deliver services by using certain methods — particularly if what you’re asking isn’t going to be easy. What they really want to know is whether it’s actually worth the effort. As we suggested earlier, individuals who are good at accountability are teachers, and much of their teaching is about the consequences to varying stakeholders: “Here’s why it’s worth it.” They make the invisible visible by whatever means will work.
When it comes to parenting, the younger the child, the greater the need to teach the child the relationship between behavior and outcome. Newborns do not understand consequences. Almost everything a parent does during the early stages of child rearing is to protect a child from invisible bad consequences and then to teach. As children grow older, methods change and resistance increases, at least until age 14, when your offspring actually know everything and you don’t have to teach them anymore. Of course, when they turn 21, they become ignorant again.
When You’re Jointly Exploring
This circumstance comes up more often than you might imagine. The other person isn’t exactly motivated, and neither of you is quite sure why. Perhaps the other person knows why but isn’t saying. In either case, you can’t figure out why the other person isn’t motivated, and you’ll need to examine the impact that personal, social, and structural factors are having on the individual to determine which ones are making the task undesirable.
The idea here is to examine each source of influence with simple questions: “Is the job hard to do?” “Is it repetitive, boring, uncomfortable (and so on)? Is that why you don’t want to do it?” “Are others encouraging you not to do it?” “Is the task at odds with what the other person is getting rewarded for?”
The goal of exploring consequences is to bring to the surface the issues that make the task undesirable. If it’s not immediately clear, this could take some work. Once you’re both aware of the factors that are at play, decide if you still want the other person to continue (you may change your mind). If you decide that the task still makes sense, use any combination of the methods we’ve described for making the consequences visible.
When Priorities Differ
What if the other person has different priorities? It’s not that people don’t want to do the task; it’s just not at the top of their list. Priorities can differ for several reasons. Maybe other tasks came up out of nowhere, or perhaps that person enjoys doing other jobs more. Maybe the people who have let you down have forgotten what they were supposed to do or, more likely, why they were supposed to do it. Here’s a big one: perhaps they were hoping that nobody would care if they dropped that part of the job. They eliminated it and watched to see what would happen.
Whatever the reason, people know what to do but choose something else. Let’s be honest: more often than not, they already know what the consequences will be. Under these circumstances, explaining why certain parts of the job are necessary can sound quite different from routine instruction. You’re now doing your best to remind people without haranguing them. Consider the following:
“Are you sure that I need to explain safety procedures to everyone walking in here? Some of the visitors have been here before.”
“Remember when we had that discussion a couple of months back about government regulations? If people get hurt, they can sue us if we haven’t talked to them every time. I know it can seem redundant, but it’s the law.”
Reminding people is the tactic you take with hardworking, reliable individuals who are caught in a priority battle.
When Others Resist
Let’s consider a more challenging case. Individuals are openly resisting your efforts. They really don’t want to fulfill their promise, they need to be convinced, and you need to be careful not to create resistance. That means that you’ll need to know how to explain why something has to be done without jumping straight to power or discipline. Now what?
This is the discussion people have in mind when they say that those they work and live with are hard to motivate: “Others fight me at every turn.” Fortunately, the basic principle is the same: explain natural consequences until the person genuinely agrees to comply. In this case it’s a delicate search. You keep searching for consequences until you find one the other person values. Here are examples:
“Come on. I have better things to do than get my expense reports in the day I get back.”
“We’ve found that the longer people drag it out, the less accurate their reports are. They often forget small expenses, and it costs them money” (consequences to the employee).
“I’ve got a good memory.”
“It also causes trouble for the people in accounting. They have their own deadlines and goals. If we wait too long, it throws them off” (consequences to coworkers).
“Big deal. Let them suffer once in a while. I’m the one on the road half my life.”
“When you don’t get your bills in, we don’t bill our clients as quickly. Last year we figure late billing cost the company over $200,000” (consequences to shareholders).
“We made a bazillion dollars last year.”
“When you drag out your reports for a couple of weeks, I get a call, and I have to track you down and hold these kinds of conversations. It’s not how I want to spend my time” (consequences to the boss).
“Hmmm. I didn’t realize I was making more work for you. Sorry. From now on I’ll put a reminder in my calendar, and it’ll keep me on track.”
This type of lengthy consequence search calls for both patience and skill. The person really doesn’t want do what you’re asking, and it takes a genuine search to come up with something that motivates him or her. You have to search because not every consequence matters to everyone. In this example the employee didn’t care about anything until the boss talked about how it was inconveniencing him (which, by the way, implies the use of power).
When to Use Discipline
Despite your best efforts, sometimes you still have to start down the path of discipline. Perhaps the other person has done something that requires immediate action. Maybe your son crossed the line from resisting your efforts to being disrespectful and insulting. Maybe you’ve explained consequences, and the other person isn’t going to do what you ask no matter what you say.
Perhaps you’ve had multiple conversations — describing content, pattern, and relationship — but the employee is still violating every agreement you make. It’s time to change tactics. It’s time to move away from natural consequences and start imposing consequences of your own (discipline). As you start down this precarious path, keep the following in mind.
Know the Mechanics
Every organization has its own discipline steps and policies. Study them carefully. If you fail to follow procedure, your efforts may be thrown out when they are reviewed, undermining your credibility. Families should create their own clear disciplinary steps as well. If they do not, everything comes as a surprise.