Entrepreneurs, There is Great Folly in Rewarding A, While Hoping For B
May 13th, 2009
photo credit: Publicly Sc(∀)lped
Entrepreneurs, in this post I share with you an eye-opening article that I read in graduate school. This article helped me to be more aware of the reward systems that I was using in every area of my business life. I changed the way I interacted with my employees, peers and clients. I hope this classic article (updated version) is as helpful for you as it has been for me and many other business people. Read, learn and enjoy.
This helps me to explain what is going on at my office.
I am an educator for young people 16-21. Often I am baffled by the expectations of the principals and chancellor. They will say they want to reward all efforts even grade to grade improvements. This means that students that enter my classroom with a 5th grade reading level, and after 3 months of class time reads on a 7th grade level, this is considered rewardable. However, the testing for these improvements do not take place in a timely manner. The investment in class time for these individual students are not supported, mostly due to their lack of attendance, class pace, and overcrowed rooms. Instead they pay more attention to how many GED are achieved. They tell the teachers we want to focus on these small improvements we are here to support you in anyway. This never happens. We only hear good job, when we produce GEDs and/or how many people we can pile into a classroom. Quality of education is sacrificed
for the dollar amount they get for how many students we can fit into a classroom. However, when there that many students in a classroom only the top students really get the help they need. The low functioning students, those who may only get one grade improvement are neglected inadvertanly.
I try to combat this by offering tutoring after class and this does help some students but sadly not all. I will continue to do my best to close this gap the best way I can by reaching out to these students.