11) Scarcity – I want ALL of the cookies

At a think tank I once attended, the topic posed to our group was how to create a world where people care about each other first. We quickly found ourselves in a somewhat esoteric conversation about this ideal when someone said, “I live in a tension between self-interest and other-interest. There are many mornings when I get up and I simply want all of the cookies. I don’t want to share my limited supply of cookies. I want them all.” We all laughed and many of us were thinking, “Yep, sometimes we just want all the cookies.”

A major healthcare company had been running a tiered incentive program for several years where the highest level was platinum. They began to notice that independent sales representatives in the program would work very hard to “hit” the black diamond level requirements each year, and once they hit the highest level, move on to competitive programs. What to do? The decision was made to add a Top 50 category that was updated every six months. The perks and privilege made Top 50 very desirable. You couldn’t “get in” and then rest on your laurels. You had to keep raising the bar if you were to be part of this exclusive club.

In another program, the first 100 people who submitted a claim were rewarded with a virtual badge that denoted their special status. These folks were recognized in a news feed communication to all participants in the program. What happened? A very fast start to the program with people clamoring to be part of the first 100 to earn a badge they could show off to their colleagues.

From a more personal perspective, I am a fan of Trader Joe’s. Every holiday season, Trader Joe’s has a very popular tea on their shelves called Candy Cane Green Tea. Because they only stock this tea for a few short months each year, Candy Cane Green Tea flies off the shelves. As soon as they stock it and restock it, it’s gone. Would it be so special if it was available year-round? Would it even taste as good if I knew I could always get more?

That which is in short-supply seems much more valuable to us. Marketers and motivation program designers have utilized numerous tactics for many years including limited-time offers, time-is-running-out messaging, fast starts, fast finishes and break-the-bank rule structures. Scarcity has a significant influence on behavior.

Science

Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: Science and Practice, puts it this way: “Opportunities seem more valuable to us when they are less available.”[1] There are a number of dimensions to the scarcity principle. We’ll explore three:

• Reactance Theory: When free choice is limited or threatened, the need to retain our freedoms makes us want them significantly more than before.
• Take-Away Angst: The scarcity principle is even more powerful when we have something and risk losing it. It then becomes that much more attractive to us.
• Competitive Take-Away: And topping the hierarchy of take-away angst is when someone else gets what we once had.

Reactance theory was developed by Jack Brehm to explain the human response to diminishing personal control. As opportunities become less available, we lose freedoms—and we hate to lose the freedoms we already have.[2] The human desire for freedom shows up in the “terrible twos” when children are growing into their own individuality. It activates again in a big way during teenage years and may take a particularly rebellious form. It lives on into adulthood when we sense scarcity that may interfere with our access to something we value. We tend to react against the interference by trying to possess the item even more than we did before.

The quest to possess is particularly strong when a person has something and then may lose it, what we call Take-Away Angst. Stephan Worchel conducted a consumer preference study where participants were given a chocolate chip cookie from a jar and asked to taste and rate its quality. For half the raters, the jar contained ten cookies; for the other half, it contained just two. The result? When the cookie was one of two, it was rated more favorably than when it was one of ten on three counts:

• More desirable to eat in the future
• More attractive as a consumer item
• More costly than the identical cookie in abundant supply

A twist was added to the experiment. Some participants were first given a jar of ten cookies that was then replaced by a jar of two cookies. Other participants were only given the jar of two cookies so there was constant scarcity. The result?

• Once you’ve seen abundance and then experience scarcity, the scarce item is much more valuable to you.

Once people have possessed something, they do not want to lose it. Once a person achieves the Top 50 category, there is a desire to retain that status. This is like the drive to acquire and the drive to defend interacting to keep possessions, perks, freedoms and privileges. But there is more at play: You could lose those prized perks to someone else. Competitive Take-Away, it turns out, supercharges the scarcity principle. A further condition was added to the cookie study. Certain participants were told that some of their cookies had to be given away to other raters in order to supply the demand for cookies in the study. Others were told that the number of their cookies had to be reduced because the researcher made a mistake and initially gave them the wrong jar. The result?

• Those whose cookies became scarce through the process of social demand (competition) liked the cookies significantly more than the people whose cookies became scarce by mistake.[3]

The scarcity principle is a powerful influencer but should be used with care. In a spirit of friendly competition and striving for higher levels of contribution and performance, scarcity can spur people out of complacency and into action.

Action:

Are there opportunities to utilize the scarcity principle to spur people to action within your program? Sometimes complacency can set into a program. There may be an opportunity to spur action through friendly competition and scarcity.

10) Social Proof – The Draw of the Crowd

We have established that we humans are social creatures and quite spectacularly influenced by people around us. The principle of social proof has to do with our desire to adopt correct behavior. And we tend to view a behavior as correct in a given situation based on the actions of other people. Usually when a lot of people are doing something, it’s the right thing to do.

Consider these statistics, as of March 2013:

• 500 million active users on Twitter
• 800 million active users on YouTube
• 1 billion downloads of Rovio (Angry Birds)
• 1.06 billion monthly active users on Facebook[1]

Am I the only person in the world that hasn’t downloaded Angry Birds? Almost one seventh of the world population (7 billion) has downloaded Angry Birds. What is wrong with me? I must be missing out on something incredibly fun. People are always talking about playing Angry Birds, and I sit there with a blank look on my face. Alone. Disconnected from the experiences of almost everyone. I need to download Angry Birds.

You get the idea. Social proof is powerful. We tend to be swayed by what the masses are doing.

Science

Most travelers staying at hotels have encountered a bathroom sign asking them to help save the environment by reusing their towels. Daily laundering can make a large hotel go through several million gallons of water a year, plus detergent, energy and labor. So, the typical approach is for hotels to appeal to their guests’ value of green and protecting the environment by asking them to please reuse their towels. It turns out there is a better way: use the principle of social proof.

In a study, two types of professional-looking signs were used: one with the standard environmental message and the other telling guests that most of their fellow guests had reused towels. Sure enough, the social norm message worked about 25 percent better than the standard environmental one. In a follow-up study that tested different tweaks to the social-norm message, the results skyrocketed. What did they do? They said that guests who had stayed in this room had reused their towels. This message worked significantly better than simply saying that other hotel guests had done so.[2]

According to Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: Science and Practice, the principle of social proof is particularly persuasive under two conditions – in times of uncertainty and when others like oneself are doing something. He refers to the latter condition as similarity. In the case of hotel towel reuse, similarity was used in the messaging focused on people who had stayed in a particular room. People saw the other guests as similar to themselves, making this messaging the most effective in driving towel reuse.

The other condition is during times of uncertainty. When people are unsure or a situation is ambiguous, they are more likely to attend to the actions of others and to accept those actions as the correct ones. This is often the case when an organization is moving through a change effort and utilizing meetings and motivation programs as a key strategy in the change. Using social proof as a powerful form of feedback demonstrates what others are doing during the change.

People have become accustomed to these feedback mechanisms. For example, most online retailers now provide product and service ratings. Consumers know which products are best-sellers and which are the most highly rated. Trip Advisor and eBay are great examples of companies that have popularized social proof.

Designers of meetings and motivation programs can also apply the principle of social proof as a feedback mechanism. For example, feedback processes can spotlight behaviors such as program enrollment, engagement in key elements of the program, milestone achievement and the number of people who have achieved various earning levels. For meetings, social proof can be used through real-time surveys and voting – where the results are immediately displayed to the audience.

Action:

Are you tracking and communicating key enrollment, engagement and performance metrics? Tracking systems need to be established preferably with real-time reporting capabilities. Are you personalizing “social proof” feedback based on people who have similar characteristics? The more you can communicate metrics based on groups of people who are similar to one another, the more powerful.

#9) Credible – Use the Credibility Rule of Three

What makes you believe a message? Often we think if the message is on-target and accurate, people will believe it. But that isn’t the case. To a great extent, people believe other people. And there are two groups of people that seem to hold the most sway over us – people we believe are similar to ourselves and credible authorities. Furthermore, people are more likely to believe when there are humanized statistics and vivid details provided. Think of this as the

Credibility Rule of Three: Authority, Antiauthority and Humanized Statistics.

Authority: Most of us remember the E. F. Hutton commercial that concluded with these words, “When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen.” E. F. Hutton was a credible expert who, according to the commercial, had tremendous influence. The E. F. Hutton of today is likely Warren Buffett. When Warren Buffett speaks, people listen … from CEOs to the everyday investor. He is viewed as highly credible in the world of business investments. Robert Cialdini, a professor of psychology with numerous books published on influence, recently spoke to a group of Maritz clients. He was educating all of us on how to craft messages and offers that have greater influence. While we knew he was a credible academic who had written some good books, we really didn’t know how much this would apply to business practice. He shared the story of the one book that is required reading for managers at Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s company. Berkshire Hathaway knew the importance of understanding what influences people, he said. This book shapes how they approach their strategic communications. At this point, Robert Cialdini has our attention. We all wanted to know the book. Of course, it was Cialdini’s book, Influence: Science and Practice. Just by sharing this story, there was a significant impact. We shifted our perception of Cialdini as a credible academic to Cialdini as a credible source for business acumen. If Warren Buffett saw this level of value from Cialdini’s teaching, surely he was someone we should listen to and heed his advice.

Antiauthority: But it’s not just credible authorities that hold greater sway over us. It’s also people we view as similar to ourselves, what we might call antiauthority. Advertisers have caught on to this principle. For example, many people were influenced by Jared Fogle, the guy who lost weight, 245 pounds to be exact, by eating at Subway. Think for a minute about who you are influenced by. As a mom, you may find you listen to other moms about parenting challenges. Entrepreneurs tend to seek advice from other entrepreneurs about start-up challenges. Academics gather with other academics in their area of study. Within organizations, there are informal influencers who may or may not be part of the management hierarchy, but their sphere of influence is sizable simply because people view them as credible and worth paying attention to. A whole area of analysis called social network analysis has been developed in order to better understand how information and influence happens in the natural networks of human relationships.

Humanized Statistics: Statistics, in and of themselves, are not a powerful source of prompting people to act differently. People are most influenced by human stories and humanized statistics. Steven Covey, in his book The 8^th Habit, describes a poll of 23,000 employees drawn from a number of companies and industries.[1] Here are the poll findings:

• Only 37 percent said they had a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why.
• Only one in five was enthusiastic about their team’s and their organization’s goals.
• Only one in five said they had a clear line of sight between their tasks and their team’s and organization’s goals.
• Only 15 percent felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals.
• Only 20 percent fully trusted the organization they work for.

Depressing but still very abstract. Then Covey superimposes a very human metaphor over the statistics by saying, “If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what positions they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent.” Covey imbues the statistics with a sense of drama where we can see with vivid detail what might happen as two players are trying to score a goal only to be opposed by members of their own team. The statistics have been transformed into a human story where we can visualize what is happening in a very real and concrete way. Statistics are a good source of credibility when they are used to illustrate relationships.

From a scientific perspective, people are wired to be social. Matthew Lieberman, one of the founders of the field of social affective neuroscience, tells us the core operating system of the brain is social. The social system is, in fact, the default system of the brain. When you have a little downtime, what do you notice yourself thinking about? Relationships with other people? Newborn babies are wired to attune with the people around them. They immediately mimic their mothers and care givers. The only way to survive is through other people. Research shows that when we are socially rejected, the same centers of the brain activate as if we experienced physical pain such as a burn on the hand. It would make sense, then, that we are much more influenced by other people than just by some “cold, hard facts.”

Action:

The credibility rule of three: authority, antiauthority and humanized statistics, is a powerful formula for designers to take into consideration as they develop influence and behavior change strategies for meeting and motivation programs.  Are you carefully considering “who” program messages come from in the programs you deliver? Look for sources of authority and antiauthority that people trust and will listen to. Are you engaging key influencers during the design process and throughout the program? Key influencers may not be those with formal hierarchical authority, but they are the people who others listen to. If they are onboard, then others will likely be influenced to participate fully in the program.

#8) Simple – What is the one thing?

One line from the 1991 movie City Slickers (yes, the one starring Billy Crystal) will make all the difference as you design a meeting or motivation program experience. This pearl of wisdom was shared by Curly, the tough old cowboy character played by the late Jack Palance. Here’s the dialogue from the scene where Curly espouses his life philosophy to Mitch, Billy Crystal’s character:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?

Curly: This. [holds up one finger]

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.

Mitch: But what is the “one thing?”

Curly: [smiles] That’s what you have to find out.

Science:

We live in a world and time where we are bombarded by information. It comes at us from all directions and can be quite mind-numbing. It turns out that the brain is like a bargain shopper looking to balance value versus cost. For the brain, this translates into how interesting the message is versus how difficult it is to process.[1] This balance can be called the interest/effort ratio. Because the brain is highly efficient and conserves energy whenever possible, it prefers the most interest at the least effort. Laboratory evidence shows that the brain is figuratively so thrifty about the energy it expends that it attaches positive feelings to concepts when they are easy to process.[2]

In the book Made to Stick, authors Dan Heath and Chip Heath dedicate a full chapter to SIMPLE – the first principle for creating an idea (or experience) that sticks.[3] They share research on what they call “decision paralysis” that demonstrates how the brain loves simplicity. The research was conducted by Amos Tversky and Eldar Shafir.[4] Their goal was to understand how complexity impacted decision-making. Imagine you are a college student. You’ve just completed an important final exam. You have to wait two days to get your exam results back. In the meantime, you see an opportunity to purchase a vacation to Hawaii during the holidays at a super cheap price. You have three options:

1.)   Buy the vacation today.

2.)   Pass on it today.

3.)   Pay $5 to lock in the price for two days so you can decide after you get your grades back.

You feel some desire to know the outcome of your exam before you decide, so for a second group of students, Tversky and Shafir removed the uncertainty of how the students did on the final exam. These groups were told up front how they did on the exam. Some students were told they passed the exam, and 57 percent of them chose to go on the trip – a good celebration. Other students were told they failed the exam, and 54 percent of them chose to go on the trip – a need to recuperate. Both those who passed and those who failed wanted to go to Hawaii. Here’s the twist. The group of students who didn’t know their final exam results behaved completely differently. The majority of them – 61 percent – paid $5 to wait for two days. What do we make of this? In reality, if you pass, you want to go. If you don’t pass, you want to go. If you don’t know whether you passed or failed, you … wait and see. The brain loves simplicity.

So what does this have to do with designing effective meetings and motivation programs?  The key is to keep it simple.  Having a Core Organizing Concept guide every aspect of your program removes complexity from the experience. Everything simply adds up to a coherent and, hopefully, compelling experience. The core organizing concept is your touchstone for every aspect of the program you design. It’s the big idea that creates coherency and simplicity and power. It will not be easy to come up with this big idea, but when you do, it will make all the difference. You won’t find it through analysis. You’ll find it through observation, imagination and intuition. Some might call this a theme. But all too often, themes are merely warmed-over corporate jargon. We’ve all been in brainstorm sessions where clichéd themes are bantered about. Too often, they’re lifeless words that carry no real meaning because the “themes” are disconnected from the organization’s bigger purpose and values. These themes tend to sound like: Win big! Star power! Celebrate you! Program participants ignore themes that lack authenticiy and relevance. What’s needed is to be authentically aligned with core purpose and values while “hitting the mark of relevance” for the people you want to inspire and engage.

Action:

Great designers are like Curly. They know that figuring out the “one thing” is not an easy matter. But when you do, it holds the secret to a coherent and memorable program experience. Do you have a core organizing principle that everyone on the design team understands? Every decision about the program should be made based on the core organizing principle … the one thing.

#7) Keep in Mind the Peak-End Rule

According to Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast and Slow, we have two selves: the experiencing self and the remembering self.[1] Your experiencing self is having an experience right now as you read this. While your remembering self will later recall the memory of having read this. That’s not to say that you have multiple personalities, only that your remembering self will hold only aspects of reading this in memory. But which aspects will you most likely remember? Which will most shape whether you want to read this again in the future?

About a year ago, I attended a two-day think tank in beautiful Aspen, Colorado. There were about 20 of us in attendance, and it was hosted by a businessperson on his private ranch. My memory of the meeting draws me to two peak experiences. One was at the beginning where we started with an amazing hike through the aspens as they were turning bright yellow in the autumn. Many of us had never met, so the hike was a time of getting acquainted against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. The other peak experience was the final night. We were all asked to gather outside a barn. We waited for about 10 minutes before our host addressed the group with a few words to express his gratitude for all of us attending. Then the doors to the barn opened and, much to our surprise, the entire space had been transformed into a spectacular dining room with a chandelier entwined with lights hung over a table large enough to seat all 20 of us. The seats were made of bales of hay covered by white sheepskin. There was a band playing as we all entered. Surprise, gracious hospitality, music, great conversation, laughter and warmth … an ending that was truly remarkable. When I was asked to describe my two-day think tank experience, I simply said it was one of profound connection and hospitality. The peak experiences, especially the way the meeting ended, had a significant impact on my memory of the meeting as a whole.

Science:

In Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman shares that people have a bias for remembering “short periods of intense joy” – or peak moments – especially at the end of an experience, more than they remember a “longer period of moderate happiness.” Kahneman conducted an experiment where participants were asked to hold their hand up to the wrist in painfully cold water until they were invited to remove it and were offered a warm towel. The participants used their free hand to control arrows on a keyboard to record their levels of pain throughout the procedure. Each participant endured two cold hand episodes. One was a short episode of 60 seconds in cold water followed by removing the hand and getting a warm towel. The second episode was 90 seconds where the first 60 seconds were identical to the first episode followed by another 30 seconds where the water gradually warmed up – just enough to notice a decrease in pain. After the two episodes, participants were asked which one they would want to repeat. Eighty percent chose the second episode.

How could that be? The second episode had 60 seconds of intense cold followed by another 30 seconds of slightly less intense cold, versus the first episode having only 60 seconds of intense cold. Our remembering self only stores representative moments that are strongly influenced by the peak and the end. The duration of an experience is not that important to the remembering self. When we make decisions, we choose based on our memory whether or not we’d want to repeat the experience and to what degree we consider an experience good, bad or simply nothing special.

While this applies to a painful experience, is it really relevant to how we view an incentive travel experience, for example? Psychologist Ed Diener and his team provided evidence that it is the remembering self that chooses vacations. He asked students to maintain daily diaries and record an evaluation of their daily experiences during spring break. The students also provided an overall rating of the vacation when it ended. The students were asked whether or not they would want to repeat the vacation they just had. The results showed that intention to repeat the vacation was entirely determined by the overall evaluation of the vacation when it ended. Sometimes this overall score did not match up to what they wrote in their daily diaries, but that did not matter. As in the cold hand experiment, they choose by the overall memory they held at the end of the experience.

So, how does the peak-end rule apply to meetings and motivation programs? If you want to create an experience that people will want to repeat, you must carefully design peak experiences that activate emotional intensity in a positive manner, and you must pay particular attention to the ending. Be sure the ending brings any tensions to a resolution. For example, create a culmination experience at the end of an incentive travel experience or at the end of a meeting. Design novel celebration and recognition events that bring a motivation program to a close.

Action:

All design starts with intention. And because experience and memory are not the same, it’s important to set an intention to create both a great experience and a great memory. Tap the peak-end rule to create a memory people will want to come back to.

#6) Novelty – Employ Surprise + Interest

A large pharmaceutical company had just gone through a significant merger. The executives wanted to create a meeting experience that shifted people away from protecting their own turf toward a shared culture with shared goals. Of course, they decided to have a meeting. But this meeting wasn’t the traditional line-up of talking heads sending “important messages” from the stage. Instead, it was an experience filled with surprise and adventure. Unknowing employees arrived at the doors of the meeting room to find them closed. They waited until almost everyone had gathered. Then the doors opened with a fanfare, and they walked into the room. The first thing that hit them was a blast of cold air … a bit of startlement and then laughter. Next, they saw a mountain peak on the stage, climbing gear and executives dressed up as mountaineers. This was NOT going to be a typical meeting. This was going to be an interesting adventure.

The meeting was touted as a key moment in the change management process that brought the two companies together as one. The shared experience infused with novelty through surprise sustained interest and spurred tribal stories for months to come.

Science:

Novel experiences trigger new ways of seeing the world. Gregory Berns, the Distinguished Chair of Neuroeconomics at Emery University, wrote a book called Iconoclast[1] in which he explores where great ideas and new learning comes from. Our brains are basically lazy … constantly finding the most efficient way to process information. Most of the time, when we’re in the midst of an experience, we’re operating on an autopilot of classical conditioning or associative learning. The famous rhesus monkeys experiment involved scientist Wolfram Schultz turning on a light followed by giving the monkeys a squirt of juice. Before the experiment, Schultz observed that the dopamine neurons fired in response to the juice itself. After a brief period of seeing the light followed by getting some juice, Schultz observed that the dopamine neurons began firing at just seeing the light. This is classical conditioning. Essentially, there is a learned association between light and the pleasure of juice.[2] Much of the time, people operate in what Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, calls System 1 thinking.[3] This thinking is like a big “association machine” linking circumstances, events, actions and outcomes into a predictable pattern. Think of System 1 as an autopilot web of learned associations that loves to keep things coherent and tidy.

While some association is very helpful, this is NOT where you want all of your meeting and motivation program experiences to be! Assuming you actually want people to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT because of your meeting or motivation program, you simply must awaken a DIFFERENT WAY OF THINKING. You must activate System 2, which is our much slower, more deliberate way of thinking.

How do you do this? Two ways: Surprise gets our attention, and Interest keeps our attention. Chip Heath and Dan Heath captured this insight in the book, Made to Stick.[4] In a prior design principle, we covered the importance of emotional intensity in how we make choices and what prompts actions.

When we experience surprise, we are jolted out of autopilot. And we are open and curious to see things in a new way. The attendees who experienced the jolt of a burst of cold air followed by seeing an amazing stage with a mountain built on it … had their curiosity piqued and even laughed with one another in anticipation of what was coming next.

But surprise is only the beginning if we really want to fully engage people and keep them curious and open to new learning and ways of doing things. The Gap Theory of Curiosity created by George Loewenstein, a behavioral economist at Carnegie Mellon University, states that curiosity happens when we feel a gap in our knowledge. These gaps cause discomfort. Like when you misplaced your car keys and can’t find them. You feel unresolved until you do. So it is … with any gap in knowledge. It creates a striving or yearning to answer the question that is left open.

Sometimes creating a gap in knowledge is as simple as posing a question for people to consider. Sometimes it may entail creating tension between today’s reality and a desired vision or future. Sometimes it means helping people create their own questions that prompt curiosity and openness to learn and experiment with new ways of thinking and behaving. Any or all of these approaches can be important ways to infuse novelty into meetings and motivation programs. Each triggers the new way of seeing, thinking and behaving that must precede the performance required to produce better results.

Action:

To what extent are novel experiences part of your program experience? Novelty is key to engaging the more deliberate and conscious System 2 way of thinking. Additionally, novelty is central to curiosity, insights and new learning necessary for higher levels of performance.

#5) Stories – Use Narratives that Inspire

“Annette has been sales person of the year for five years in a row. She always leads the pack in achieving her sales quotas. Annette is a dedicated sales professional who lives our values each day while demonstrating success in every goal she pursues. Thank you, Annette, for another stellar performance.”

That is not a story. It is a company commercial.

Annette has worked with our Apex client for over five years. Apex is growing by leaps and bounds and turned to Annette with a challenge. They no longer wanted a tactical approach to incentivizing sales performance and were ready to cancel all of their existing programs. Instead, they said they needed a “total reward system” that integrated their core values into a full-spectrum of team-based challenges and cultural celebrations. Apex questioned if Maritz had this expertise. Annette knew she had to come back to Apex with a very different approach. She pulled together a cross-company team. Instead of jumping to the standard solutions, they stepped back and asked, “What if we simply put ourselves into the shoes of an Apex employee and crafted a solution that would WOW them?” This got the team’s creativity flowing. They pulled together what Apex called “an amazingly elegant approach.” We can see why Annette is once again, sales person of the year!

This is a story. Great stories inspire because there is a dramatic arc … there is human tension.

The interesting thing about humans is that we grow bored of stories where there is no tension. Rather, we are attracted to the drama of a “hero’s journey” of sorts. Gustav Freytag, a German novelist and playwright during the 19^th century, created what is called dramatic structure based on studying ancient Greek and Shakespearean drama. According to Freytag, a drama is divided into five parts, which some refer to as a dramatic arc: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and dénouement.

During the exposition, the setting is established, and the main characters are introduced. In the rising action, a related series of incidents builds toward the point of greatest interest. The climax is the turning point, which marks a change, for the better or the worse, in the protagonist’s affairs. During the falling action the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels, with the protagonist winning or losing against the antagonist. The dénouement is where conflicts are resolved, creating normality for the characters and a sense of catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety.

Science:

Dr. Paul Zak, a neuroeconomics scientist at Claremont University, has been studying the neurobiology of narrative. He conducted a study in collaboration with Dr. William Casebeer in which he closely monitored the neural activity of hundreds of people who viewed a simple narrative that followed the classic dramatic arc outlined by Freytag.

 Dr. Zak found that these types of stories can evoke powerful empathic responses associated with specific neurochemicals, namely cortisol and oxytocin. These brain responses actually translated into concrete action including generous donations to charity and even monetary gifts to fellow participants. By contrast, stories that failed to follow the dramatic arc of rising action/climax/dénouement—no matter how outwardly happy or pleasant those stories may be—elicited little, if any, emotional or chemical response. Nor did they prompt actions. Dr. Zak’s research conclusions give us amazing insights into how to tap the power of storytelling in program communication strategies.

Action:

Is storytelling a key aspect of your program communications? People are encouraged by stories that demonstrate that others are achieving success. The rule of social proof kicks in because we are highly influenced by people like ourselves and what they are doing.

#4) Emotional Contagion – Create an Emotional Wave

Emotions spread. We all know this to be true. I remember being asked to attend a meeting with a very interesting group of people. About ten minutes before the meeting, I gathered my notepad and set off for the meeting, which is clear across campus. I have a little pep in my step. I’ve been looking forward to this meeting all day. I arrive at the meeting room door and swing it open and briskly walk into the room with a smile on my face. It takes about two seconds for me to notice that the “feel of the room” is very heavy … in fact it is a bit tense and even stoic. What do I do? I very quickly adjust myself into an emotional state that is more cautious, more serious. I quietly take a seat.

Science:

In the book, Connected, Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler dedicate an entire chapter to how emotions spread between people and through networks of relationships. They referred to this as an emotional wave that spreads outward. We are biologically wired to mimic each other based on observing outward displays such as a smile or a frown. As we mimic these outward displays, we start to feel what others are feeling. If you watch people, you can see how they attune and synchronize facial expressions, tone of voice, postures … which then leads to shared emotional states.

Amazingly though, emotions can spread even when you are not face-to-face. There is evidence for the “three degrees of influence rule” where Christakis and Fowler reference a data set they analyzed that had measures of emotions and social connections over time. They found unhappy people cluster with unhappy people in the network of relationships; and happy people cluster with other happy people. But why? Mathematical analysis of the network revealed a causal effect of one person’s happiness on another’s.

• A person is 15 percent more likely to be happy if a directly connected person (at one degree of separation) is happy. But it doesn’t stop there.
• The happiness effect for people at two degrees of separation (the friend of a friend) is 10 percent.
• The happiness effect for people at three degrees of separation (the friend of a friend of a friend) is 6 percent.[1]

Emotions spread between individuals AND they spread across social networks. They do not spread to everyone, as much like a ripple in a pond eventually fades away, so too does the ripple of emotional contagion. Here, though, is the bottom line. Being exposed to people with particular feelings has important implications for your work and for your life. When we live and work in the contagion of happy or positive emotions, we perform better, experience less debilitating stress, are more willing to collaborate and are more creative. This, of course, has important implications for how we design motivation programs. Isn’t the whole point creating a motivating climate where people are inspired to perform at their full potential?

Action:

Emotions and their contagion have very real implications for motivation programs. We need to broaden our perspective during program design to consciously create a motivating climate … a wave of positive emotions that spreads from person to person. Start by creating ways for people to rally around the program. Program launches are a big deal … a really big deal. They are not only about the program details. Equally important is creating an energized climate and participant enthusiasm. They are about connecting the program to core purpose and values in an experience that is remarkable. Throughout the program, spotlight people and share their stories. Allow them to share their stories with one another. Make the program fun and entertaining through game mechanics and challenges. Engage executives or sponsors who are genuinely enthusiastic to take a central role in communicating the program. It is no secret that if the sponsor isn’t all that engaged with the program, most other stakeholders won’t be either. Net-net, positive emotions fuel positive emotions. Part of our job as designers is to create a wave … that people want to ride. Not complicated to understand, but might be more difficult to create in reality.

#3) Emotional Intensity – Move Beyond “The Zone of Nothing Special.”

Everyone understands how emotional intensity impacts our behavior. It can be summed up in the phrases “got to” vs. “get to.”

• “Ugh! I’ve got to go to this annoying meeting.”
• “I’ve got to go to a meeting.”
• “Wow, I get to go to this meeting!”

All three statements are laden with emotion. If you were to look at emotions on a scale from very negative to very positive, the first statement is quite negative; the second is slightly negative and the third is very positive. It is a given that we don’t want to activate negative emotions as part of a program experience. That isn’t typically the problem. The problem rests in the realm of everyday humdrum or what we can call the “zone of nothing special.” We’ve heard it many times. We ask someone what they think about a program or experience. They say, “Oh, it’s nothing special,” or, “It’s just okay.” Sure, they don’t hate the program, but you can be sure the program isn’t inspiring desired outcomes either. It’s just part of the background noise that is ever-present in most people’s work life.

Great designers are not satisfied with programs that operate in the “zone of nothing special.” They strive to go above and beyond in order to create an emotional experience that wows. They strive to be remarkable, which means the program is actually deserving of being remarked about. They understand that remarkable comes with positive emotional intensity and that positive emotional intensity is central to motivated people and motivated behavior.

Scientific support:

From a scientific perspective, the Four-Drive Theory of human nature provides key insights into what drives choices and behavior. Nitin Nohria and the late Paul Lawrence conducted a meta-analysis ranging from Darwin to cultural anthropology to psychology to economics in order to synthesize the core drivers of human behavior. They incorporated research from neuroscience to anchor this theory in how the brain operates. Their unified theory strives to put together many pieces in an easy-to-comprehend model – the Four-Drive Model.

In a nutshell, the theory says that humans have four innate, subconscious drives that are manifested in the conscious part of the brain as emotions or intuitive senses. The four subconscious impulses are the drive to acquire life-supporting resources, the drive to bond in mutually helping relations, the drive to create and understand the world around us, and the drive to defend one’s resources, bonded others and beliefs. The emotions that underpin each of these drives are unconsciously activated during our interactions and experiences and then “color” the choices that we make and the actions we pursue.

Emotions associated with each of the four biological drives:

• Drive to acquire: Greed, possessiveness, competitiveness
• Drive to bond: Empathy, cooperation, hope
• Drive to create: Awe, wonder, curiosity
• Drive to defend: Aggression, anxiety, fright

Social psychologist Kurt Lewin described three phases to an intentional action: a struggle between motives, a decision or intention that ends the struggle, and the action itself. The strength of the resulting action does not depend on the intensity of the intention but rather on the intensity of the drives upon which the intention rests. In other words, it is the intensity of emotion that energizes us to make choices and act.

Emotions have a significantly different effect on experience than rational thought. Whereas cognition happens in our brains, emotions are experienced all through the body. When you are startled, you feel it in your body. When you are inspired, your heart rate increases and you have a physical response. Emotions energize your desire to act (or not). This is not to say that we don’t have the capacity to “go against our feelings” and make another choice. For example, we all know that if your boss ticks you off, you regulate your emotions rather than lash out. But we are talking about motivation programs … in which you can choose to fully engage or to passively allow the program to operate around you. If you want people fully engaged, actively pursuing a goal and advocating for others to get involved, you must activate positive emotional intensity.

Action:

Do you know the “emotional experience” of the meeting or motivation program you are responsible for?  Have you mapped the emotional highs and lows?  Great designers take the perspective of a total program experience and purposefully activate postive emotions throughout the program experience.

#2) Create shared identity by anchoring the program in purpose and values.

Two logics for decision-making:

James March, a professor of political science at Stanford University, says that when people make choices, they tend to rely on one of two basic models of decision-making: the consequences logic and/or the identity logic. The consequences model is familiar to economics majors and those steeped in Skinnerian behaviorism. It assumes that behavior is a function of weighing costs and benefits of our options and then making a choice that maximizes our satisfaction. It’s a rational and analytical approach. In the identity model of decision-making, people consider who they are and what other people like them would do in a particular situation. Identity is not something we are just born with, it is something we adopt throughout our lives. You may see yourself as a great scientist, for example. You weren’t born a scientist, but you adopted that identity. Or, you may see yourself as a rebel, and a brand like Harley-Davidson is a reflection of your own identity. In this way, you develop a social identification with Harley-Davidson.

A case-in-point:

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, understands the power of the identity logic anchored in purpose and values. When he returned to the helm of Starbucks in 2008, one of the first things he did was reinvigorate Starbucks’ sense of who they were. He refocused the organization on Starbucks’ mission:“To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”Values remain steadfastly focused on quality coffee, employees as partners, connecting with and uplifting the lives of customers, stores where customers feel a sense of belonging, being a good neighbor in communities, and getting all of this right so shareholders are also rewarded.

In 2009, Howard Schultz took a major risk by investing in a significant meeting in New Orleans where he brought together nearly 10,000 store managers to immerse them in a multi-sensory experience built around who Starbucks is and what they stand for. This meeting, called a leadership lab, has now continued as an annual event because Starbucks knows that baristas are not just baristas – they are ambassadors of the brand ideals. And they must carry with them the belief and inspiration of Starbucks core values and purpose.

As designers of experiences, it is very important to realize that every program you design is an expression of why the client company exists and what they value. Period. Whether you are conscious of this or not, every meeting and every program sends a message of what the company values and believes in. So, get conscious. All design starts with intention. The intention behind the design must align with the core purpose and values of the company. Meetings and motivation programs should strengthen the bond between the company and the people at the level of shared values and beliefs. This is significantly more powerful than a mere transactional relationship where, for example, a Starbucks barista is just fulfilling a job for a paycheck.

Scientific support:

From a scientific perspective, creating a “shared identity” at the level of values and ideals enables a powerful emotional bond between the company or brand and the people who chose to work for or buy from the organization. Brand marketers have known for a long time the importance of an emotional bond, but we can go beyond this understanding by tapping the power of “social identification.” There is scientific evidence that the human is wired to be social. Our sense of “who we are” is tightly woven with those we view as similar to ourselves. Research conducted by Adrianna Jenkins, a psychology graduate at Harvard University, looked at a set of neurons in participants’ brains that were concerned with self-reference and identity. She asked participants to talk about themselves and she also asked them to talk about people in the study they “identified with.” She found in both cases these self-referential or identity-based neurons were active. Interestingly, self-referential parts of the brain did nothing when the volunteers were asked to think about people in the study they didn’t identify with. This suggests an intriguing possibility about the human brain: When we think about people (and perhaps brands) that we identify with, we use the same set of neurons as when we’re thinking about ourselves.[1] We experience them like our own selves. There is an overlap between who we are and the other person.

Starbucks managers who experienced the leadership lab identified with Starbucks’ purpose and values and felt proud to be part of the company. Howard Schultz wrote in his book Onward, “Give them reasons to believe in their work and that they’re part of a larger mission … and they’ll in turn personally elevate the experience for each customer ….” They’ll do this because “They are the mission … they are not just doing a job.”

Action:

Purpose and values are an anchor for everything you do as a business.  Are your meetings and motivation programs expressing your purpose and values?  Are you thinking beyond consequencial logic to also incorporate identity logic into your meeting and motivation program experiences?