GALT Consulting LLC

Science has learned some interesting things about using rewards and punishments for people...  but I want to talk about the cold.

Man... it is cold.  Very cold.  Do you know what "cold" is?  Bare with me...

Temperature is technically a measurement of the average kinetic energy of molecules.  Everything is made up of molecules and those molecules are always in motion.  They bounce around and bump into each and various speeds.  When molecules are more active, the temperature is higher.  Less active and the temperature is lower.  (stick with me)

When you step outside and it is very cold outside, you "feel" cold.  What is actually happening is that the molecules in your warm skin are bumping into the slower molecules of the air around you.  Your molecules start to slow down get cold.  Your body, in order to maintain its core temperature, must then expend energy by burning food.  This excites the molecules again and works to counter the cold.  It works... at least for awhile.

It occurs to me that organizations are like matter and they have a temperature.  When an organization loses energy, it's people slow down.  When they become energized, they move more quickly and efficiently.  So the question is... how do you heat up your organization?

Back to the cold weather...  if you are cold, what is the best way to warm up?  First, I want to point out again that people are created with an "inner warmth" mechanism that keeps them warm for awhile.  In our older days, we would create a fire when we were cold.  The fire would warm us, until we walked away from the fire.  (hint: hmmm... replace fire with rewards or punishment and you'll see my analogy).

Eventually, we figured out that the fire is a temporary solution.  It doesn't really heat our environment, it only produces a localized and temporary source of energy.  Eventually, we figured out that we needed to control our environment itself and we built houses with heat.  Now instead of worrying about freezing to death, we can concentrate on more fulfilling things like writing blog articles about the cold that really relate to how people are motivated.

The analogy is pretty solid, although tricky to understand.  If your organization is "cold", you can compensate by lighting fires, but you need to know that his is temporary.  Instead, you need to spend time and effort to find ways to change your environment to one that better fits the strengths and passions of your people.  Once your house is warmer, you can move from surviving to thriving!

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