Verne Harnish’s latest newsletter mentions an interesting website called Stickk that is intended to allow you to create your own reinforcement system. Set up a goal, commit an amount of your own money that you will pay yourself for accomplishing the goal and off you go. The goal can be anything you choose.

If you don’t achieve the goal, the money is forfeit, and goes to whomever you designate, such as a charity, your ex-wife, and so on.

So is this positive or negative reinforcement? Well, it all depends on whether is causes the behavior to repeat. If you use the site once, lose money, and don’t return, negative reinforcement. Use the site, lose money, return and try again, positive reinforcement for site usage. Use the site, accomplish your goal, don’t return, negative reinforcement for site usage and goal accomplishment. Use the site, accomplish your goal, return again, positive reinforcement for site usage.

So it seems as if the reinforcement scheme is keyed to the website and not the goal. Which is what I would want if I built that website. And in fact it is the exact issue we have faced at PositiveWare. Users completing tasks or actions don’t necessarily get reinforcement from the software. Users have suggested that we embed rewards in the application, so that the 23rd user completing a task gets a movie ticket or lottery tickets or whatever.

One of the initial motives for building PositiveWare was to create a single environment where a user could increase employee engagement through collaboration, alignment, and accountability.

But to use the Cricket vernacular, accountability is the sticky wicket. Software can’t make a manager hold an employee accountable, it can only create an environment where this is possible.  A SMART goal is important, but in the absence of consequences it is probably irrelevant.

I was reminded of this today working with one of our clients. I heard him say, if only I can show this employee what I really want this time (as opposed to the last 5 quarters where the employee was also shown what was really wanted) I know that he will execute.

Well, sorry, it just isn’t so. The software shows in vivid detail what is done and not done. No amount of rationalizing can change the facts. But a manager can rationalize himself out of taking the very serious step of letting the employee go.

A weekend article in the Denver Post/Wall Street Journal Sunday by Kelly Spors offered some great advice for finding a mentor. The advice in nutshell is figure out what you are looking for and then use on these tools to find it.

• MicroMentor
• IdeaCrossing.org
• iMantri.com
• Count Me In (for women)

There are also numerous resources available at a cost, including:

• EO (The Entrepreneur’s Organization)
• Vistage
• Axcelus

Why mention this? A key part of mentoring is performance management, and that is what PositiveWare does really well. As mentioned in the article,

“A good mentor is someone who is expecting the mentee to show up prepared and with their homework, so you waste no one’s time”

Coacing mentors and their mentee clients use PositiveWare as part of regular meetings to stay on track.

Since everyone and their dog is writing about New Year’s resolutions, I will just borrow from those who have gone before.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a good piece in the HR section about goal setting with employees.

Small-business owners should think about sitting down now with employees to discuss what is expected of them in the coming year…Conversations with workers should be two-way. “Take a survey of employees about what they think of things,” says Rick Gibbs, a senior human-resources specialist with Administaff, a Houston company that provides human-resources outsourcing. But, he warns, “it’s important not to do that unless there’s an intention to act” in response to staffers’ concerns.

PositiveWare is a great way to memorialize these meetings in the form of plans and tasks that are particular to individuals or teams.

Twice in the last couple of days I have had conversations with business owners helping them work through the challenge of the moment. In both cases they felt like I helped, and in both cases all I did was behave like a kind Cocker Spaniel. By doing nothing more then listening they talked their way through the problem and found their own solution.

Amazingly, they were very grateful for the help and thought I had really made a difference for them.

So this begs the question for you - Who is your Cocker Spaniel? Who will you turn to when you need to talk through a problem.

In case you can’t think of anything, a few ideas come to mind. One is a CEO forum sponsored by a trade group, chamber of commerce, or similar. A second is a business coach or executive coach. A third is something like EO, Strategic Coach, or any other opportunity to meet and develop relationships with peers.

I heard an (ex)-employee horror story while traveling in Tokyo that showed that tech companies are not immune from having stupid policies. The lesson, if it needs to be repeated, is this: People are your most important asset. Don’t let accountants make HR policy. It goes like this:

The fellow, whom I will call Luke, worked for the Japanese branch of an American ecommerce company. Apparently the company as a whole had a poor year. In Japan, however, they performed above target, based in large part on the effort put forth by the employees.

When it came time to do a salary review, Luke was given a low single digit percentage raise, along with an $800 bonus. The explanation for the sorry increase and bonus was the poor performance of the parent company. The parent company had set the budget for raises and bonuses on this basis. Of course, the parent’s performance wasn’t even remotely in Luke’s control. He busted it all year long to be part of his unit’s outstanding performance, and reasoned that he should be compensated based on that performance.

Shortly thereafter, he resigned to take a position in the Japanese branch of another American company.

I don’t believe he was a mercenary employee - he just believed that his company had not matched the commitment he had given it throughout the year. Referring back to the Gallup Poll, one of the indicators of company success is “Someone at my company cares about me as a person.”

 How will your employees answer this question?

Patrick Lencioni’s newest work, Silos, Politics and Turf Wars may as well have been written as a sales collateral for PositiveWare. From the concept of thematic goal to defining objectives to standard operating objectives, the book articulates themes that are reflected in PositiveWare architecture.

The book, developed as fiction like Lencioni’s other works, makes the point that because of the silos, politics and turf wars that exist in organizations, these organizations stuggle to succeed, retain employees, and stay viable. Breaking down these barriers is as simple as uniting executives and staff under a thematic goal and identifying the defining objectives that define success for this goal. By identifying the standard operating objectives for the business as well, all relevant goals for the firm are identified.

The mechanism for identifying the goal is as simple as asking an executive team questions like: “ What is the one thing that has to happen for this business to be successful over the next (quarter, year.) Achieving agreement on this goal as well as the defining objectives then sets a clear path forward that the entire organization can follow.

In this example I have used PositiveWare’s configurable terminology to show exactly how PositiveWare can be used to implement the ideas in the book. The specific example is from Case Study #1 in the book, regarding the merger of two pharmaceutical firms.

Thanks to Jim Franklin of Decisioneering for bringing this book to our attention.

A friend send me a copy of an email sent by Bill Gates to, well, the whole world probably. The email subject was “Beyond Business Intelligence: Delivering a Comprehensive Approach to Enterprise Information Management”. Featured prominently is the following quote:

“Information fatigue is one inevitable result of information overload. We are working to develop tools that help information workers prioritize their work and focus on the tasks that are truly important.”

Welcome to the party, Mr. Gates.

Allow me to declare my desire to start the Curt Coffman Fan Club. Why, you ask? Well, for starters Coffman is co-author of First, Break All The Rules, a 1999 classic that is one of the bases for PositiveWare. Curt also was kind enough to have lunch with me yesterday at the Blue Bonnet in Denver. Over enchiladas we talked about the challenges of making leaders believe in the importance of workforce engagement. And while signing my copy, he shared with me his belief that as labor markets tighten for all types of workers, workforce engagement will become the leading concern of business leaders.

In another book, Follow This Path, Coffman talks about the importance of the customer interaction as the new focal point for quality, and how hiring practices need to step up to this new paradigm. But while Coffman is an in demand speaker for bluest of blue chip corporations, he is a down to earth guy out of the University of Nebraska with a simple, compelling message for anyone who is wise enough to listen.

My thanks to Professor Len Greenhalgh at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business for perfectly describing the need for PositiveWare.

In a recent Wall Street Journal column by Jared Sandberg, Professor Greenhalgh is quoted as saying “One of the problem’s with management is the sheer invisibility of consequences. You put in a whole day’s work and what do you have to show for it?”

Which is exactly why PositiveWare exists. By capturing the plan and continually aligning everyone to the plan, measuring performance and providing feedback, the consequences of management, both good and bad, are made clear.