The Management Secrets Every Primary School Teacher Knows

This is a guest post.

Like most parents of young children I am locked in long-term trench warfare, trying to “encourage” them to go along with all the dull things that me and their mother want them to do.

Following the advice of the TV experts, I decided to try using a sticker chart to reward good behaviour.   The experiences that followed were a crash course in the behavioural psychology of measurement and reward.

So what happened?

I created a bright and cheerful sticker chart for my son.  I sat down with him and explained that if he was good, and earned enough stickers, he would be rewarded with a Fireman Sam DVD.  He nodded, looked a bit excited and then completely ignored the sticker chart and any stickers we offered for good behaviour.

A rethink was called for.

I asked him what he wanted as a reward

He sat on my knee as we surfed Amazon and he pointed to the small Lego kit he wanted.  He insisted that I put a picture of the toy on the sticker chart itself. That night I found him asleep with the sticker chart clutched to his chest. This taught me three very important lessons:

• The person being measured has to care about the measure and the outcome.
• The best way to achieve engagement is for the person being rewarded to drive the creation of the measure and the reward for achievement.
• Make the charts very visual and easy to update (and change). The more visual the chart, the better.

My next mistake

Now I was starting to get his attention I quickly discovered you need also need consistency of reward.  At first I would arbitrarily decide how many stickers were required for a given toy.

Despite being a few years off the formal maths skills to do this, my son would quickly spot excessively generous effort/reward ratios and home-in on toys that were good ‘value’ for the required effort. To overcome this I used a 20p/sticker conversion rate which enabled rapid price-to-sticker conversions.

There must be a real link between behaviour and outcome. The fairer the “exchange rate” between behaviour and reward, the fewer arguments there will be.

That wasn’t all I learnt

It was a long and bumpy journey with lots of lessons:

• Break progress down into visible “chunks” that can be ticked off as each milestone is hit.
• The visuals need to be simple enough for a 5-year-old to understand at a glance.
• The chart has the best impact if the person being measured is closely involved in administering it.
• Habit – it takes a while to get some engagement. There needs to be sustained effort to make it work.
• Eventually it becomes the “game” of filling the chart that is the motivation, not the reward itself.
• Don’t break your own rules. Once confidence in the measurement/reward system is lost every conversation becomes a negotiation.

These lessons apply in the world of grown-ups and business

Adults are normally a bit more sophisticated when it comes to covering up their real motivations, but you only need to look at a typical rewards programme or a Prius dashboard to realise adults love to measure progress, to be rewarded with appealing visuals and to feel there’s a reward at the end of the journey.

If you enjoyed this post click here for updates delivered to your inbox

Image by cinderellasg

Bernie Smith writes about KPI’s and Measurement at www.madetomeasurekpis.com