Roadsigns
Leaders should not make assumptions about what motivates their officers. They must ask. (iStock photo) Leaders should not make assumptions about what motivates their officers. They mu
FEATURED IN LEADERSHIP
How well do law enforcement leaders understand what motivates officers? The answer has significant implications for recruitment, training, retention, job assignments, individual officer performance, whether the department achieves its overall mission and community relations.
Because of these important implications, the question of what motivates people at work has been the subject of much research.
Scenario-Based Learning
First scenario: A company is going to offer its employees a $1,000 bonus if they meet certain performance targets. The company must select among three different ways for promoting the bonus:
- Think of what the $1,000 means—a down payment on a new car or that home improvement you’ve wanted to make.
- Think of the increased security of having $1,000 in the bank.
- Think of what the $1,000 means—the company recognizes how important you are to its overall performance.
Now, answer the following questions:
- Which positioning would most appeal to you?
- Which positioning would most appeal to the employees of the company?
Write your answers down before continuing.
Second scenario: You’re trying to persuade an officer to switch to a new position that is critical to the department’s success. The three possible pitches are:
- Think about how much security this position provides. It’s so important the department will always need someone in it.
- Think about the visibility provided by this job. Because it’s so important, a lot of people will be watching your performance.
- Think about how rewarding it will be to work in such a key job. It’s a distinctive opportunity for you to learn about some of the behind-the-scenes, inner workings of the department.
Now, answer the following questions:
- Which positioning would most appeal to you?
- Which positioning would most appeal to other officers?
Write down your answers.
The Us-vs.-Them Gap
The two scenarios above were part of four studies done by Chip Heath, co-author of the book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die and professor of organizational behavior in Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
The results of the first study were:
- Most people said No. 3 would best appeal to them personally.
- But they ranked No. 1 as most appealing to other people, followed by No. 2.
So, most people believe they’re motivated by higher level, intrinsic incentives like self-esteem, but other people are motivated by lower level, extrinsic incentives like a down payment or security. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Similarly, the results of the second study were:
- Most people responded that No. 3—the appeal to learning—would be most motivating for them.
- These same people predicted that others would be most motivated by No. 1 (job security), followed by No. 2 (aggrandizement).
Not Just Managers
A significant body of previous research suggested that inaccurate inferences about people’s motivations were distinctive to managers. Heath’s studies show that isn’t the case. Heath notes other research that shows this is an across-the-board bias.
A survey of 486 prospective law students asked them to describe their motives for pursuing a legal career and to speculate about the motives of their peers.
- 64% said they were pursuing a legal career because it was intellectually appealing, but only 12% thought so about their peers.
- 62% speculated their peers were pursuing a legal career because of financial rewards.
For more than 25 years, the General Social Survey (GSS) asked a random sample of adults to rank the importance of five aspects of their jobs:
- Pay
- Security
- Free time
- Chances for advancement
- “Important work” that gives a feeling of accomplishment
“Important work” consistently ranks first by more than 50% of the respondents, and pay typically ranks third.
But when the GSS asked respondents about incentives for others, they believed pay was very important. Seventy-three percent thought “large differences in pay” were necessary “to get people to work hard,” and 67% agreed “people would not want to take extra responsibility at work unless they were paid extra for it.”
The Implications
The across-the-board bias we seem to have about other people has obvious implications for law enforcement leadership. Believing that officers may focus on extrinsic, lower level needs such as job security, pay, working conditions, advancement, etc., may, as Heath writes in his book, Made to Stick, “[R]ob us of the chance to tap more profound motivations.”
I’ve seen such motivations tapped. At a DPS Academy where I’ve long been an adjunct instructor, I’ve seen staff tap into a profound motivation with recruits who are convinced they have reached a point of physical exhaustion and have nothing left to give—not another push up, pull up, sit up or step to run.
At that point, a corporal will say, “Now, I want you to give me one more for Trooper Duncan.” You, dear reader, likely don’t know Trooper Duncan. But I’m betting you know that he died in the line of duty.
In all my years sharing in the tradition of this academy, I’ve never seen a recruit fail to give one more for Trooper Duncan. And I believe a $20 bill wouldn’t have tapped into that same power. Heath notes other implications with leaders holding this bias:
- They may fail to communicate the importance and relevance of the department’s mission.
- They may overlook the importance of feedback.
- They may neglect opportunities to make work more interesting.
- They may underestimate officers’ desire to participate in departmental decisions.
There are implications for the across-the-board bias, such as how officers view the motivations of citizens and vice versa, and how those views may result in missed opportunities.
Conclusion
Heath noted that in all of his studies, participants could have improved their predictions if they’d assumed others were motivated like they were. Clearly, we have more in common with each other than we think.
At the very least, the research establishes that leaders shouldn’t make assumptions about officers’ motivations, and vice versa. Instead, when we’re making decisions down and up the chain of command that involve other people’s motivations, maybe we should ask them what would work best.
If police leaders ask officers what their top three motivators are, they just might find some profound motivations they’ve been missing that have nothing to do with pay or other extrinsic work conditions.
Related links:
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Chip and Dan Heath
