Rewarding Employees to Take Chances and Make Mistakes

作者针对华尔街日报的一篇文章讲起，告诉我们并非所有的奖励创新失败都会起到重要的作用，在采用改革激励措施时候一定要慎重。

Scottsdale, AZ -- I'm a regular reader and fan of Sue Shellenbarger's column in the Wall Street Journal. You should be too, especially if you are a total rewards or human resources practitioner. But last week's (September 27) column ( Better Ideas Through Failure: Companies Reward Employee Mistakes to Spur Innovation, Get Back Their Edge ) has left me a little ponderous. In case you didn't see it, the premise of the article -- and you might surmise this from the headline -- is that some companies are trying to spur their employees to take chances and create break-through innovations by actually rewarding failure. The article emphasizes, rewarding employees for even heroic failure -- big, edgy risks -- might not be such a bad idea. ...um ... really? Let me preface my conclusion by first saying that, in general, I've never been an advocate of taking an employee to the woodshed for sticking their neck out and trying something new. Afterall, I was the lowest guy on the totem pole at a few of my early employers and it was me who was sticking my neck out to try new things. I won't argue that taking chances can lead to lessons learned and sometimes great innovations -- because I experienced it myself. Shellenbarger's article contains some great and memorable anecdotes about people being rewarded for taking risky chances, such as putting a kitty litter box under a conference table. But here's my problem: drive down the street in any number of cities in America today and -- if the street is anything like my neighborhood -- you'll see a good number of 'bank owned' signs in front of formerly-occupied homes. Why are there so many bank-owned homes? So many forclosures? Why did the U.S. government have to pony up so much taxpayer money to bail out so many banks from vast oceans of toxic assets they were (or are) holding? Largely because employees in the financial services and mortgage industries took some huge risks. They might have even been generously rewarded for creating some really innovative financial products. Things like strips and derivatives and no payment option ARM loans. The employees created some heroic failures in the process, like historically high foreclosure rates, a glut of bank-owned homes, and even the toppling of a few formerly seemingly bulletproof financial institutions. And now we have mandated risk committees at banks that are supposed to ensure that the bank isn't taking too much risk. I'm all for innovation and even fostering edgy-ness in a company, but my point is: not all innovations and pay-for-failure schemes are going to end well so be careful what you wish for. 管理新知 您可能感兴趣的文章 授课方法的心理学原理长篇连载 2008-10-16 How Social Media Jumpstarted the Share-Everything (Even Toilets) Economy 2014-06-25 下班聚餐途中被撞，算不算工伤？

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