This post in Nature is about the biological sciences, but it's just as applicable to climate science. The old saw “Follow the money!” leads you to bad science – corrupted science – in both cases.
Systems of incentives are really, really hard to get right. Just ask any manager if you'd like to understand the how and why of that. I was a manager for more years than I care to think about, and putting the right incentives in place for those employees who weren't self-motivated (that would be most of them!) was always an enormous challenge. The failures were much more numerous than the successes.
I've often noted to myself how easy it is to motivate our dogs. Just give them a tiny hint that a dog treat is in the offing, and they're instantly prepared to do absolutely anything that they know now to do. That leads directliy to a desire: for a box of “developer treats” that would work the same way on the developers working for me. Never did find those damned treats...
Its not that you can't find incentives that will motivate people, thats easy, its the side effects of that motivation that are difficult to manage.
ReplyDeleteFor example,
you want to reduce the waiting time for your helpdesk. So you adjust your performance review and/or bonus system to measure and reward based on the number of calls closed by your help desk personel.
The result is utterly predictable.
Your helpdesk will start closing a remarkable number of tickets.... and your customer satisfaction will drop dramatically. You incentised your help desk to close tickets so thats what they will do. Will they give helpful answers? Will they make certain the problem is resolved? Of course not.
Its remarkable how that works.
If you have people that are self-motivated and that just want to do a good job, they will be balancing things. Solving the problems quickly, but solving them and doing so in such a way the customer is left happy.
Its also just as predictable what happens to their motivation when they start seeing the results of your incentive program as they see their co-workers raking in extra money or getting rated better than them.
There is no formula and no replacement for a hands on manager having the discretion to reward accordingly.
Its always the law of unintended consequences and there is a lesson to be learned here about government attempts to change behavior sometimes with the best intentions and always with the unintended results.
Larry