Cooperate!
"I'm about to have a contest between our workers to spur
productivity. Any ideas?" - Harvey G.
Let the following story be a warning.
"We're about to have some exciting competition," said the
manager of a steel plant in Ohio. "We have three eight-hour
shifts and I'm going to issue this challenge. The shift that
produces the most steel with the highest quality over the
next thirty days will receive a substantial bonus for every
worker."
For the first few days, there was a lot of bantering between
the workers as they changed shifts. "You just wait. We're
going to win this thing," one night supervisor said to the
incoming morning employees. It began as a friendly rivalry.
As time passed, however, what the manager thought was a
great motivational device proved to be a disaster. Just a
few days after the competition began, discord surfaced
between the teams. For example, as one shift was about to
leave the plant they would turn off the power so that the
next group would have to re-fire the furnaces - losing
precious time and producing less steel.
Workers in another shift, dumped foreign materials into the
furnace that would lower the quality of the steel for the
next team.
At the end of the month, management was stunned. There had
been a decrease in output.
Internal competition rarely works. It pits worker against
worker, resulting in lower morale, diminished production and
friction in the organization. The lesson learned in that
Ohio plant is one we all must discover sooner or later. We
win through cooperation, not competition.
Neil Eskelin
jumpstartlist@neileskelin.com
www.neileskelin.com