Reward power refers to the ability to deliver rewards or benefits to influence others. These can be financial, material, or psychological rewards. Reward Power is the fastest way to persuade.
This power is the opposite of coercive power. With coercive power you punish, and with reward power you offer incentives. Reward Power is based on utility, which is the understanding that in every transaction there is potential for exchange. Basically, the energy utility recognizes that there is always something I want and something you want. We can satisfy the needs of others by exchanging what we have for what the other wants. Prizes are a form of utility power. They are a way of rewarding people for doing what you want them to do. The reward becomes the incentive for enforcement action. Examples of benefits include sales bonuses, paychecks, incentive clauses in contracts, airline bonus miles, and credit card bonus points.
It’s important to understand that some incentives will work well with one person, but not another. For some people, money is the reward. For still others, recognition is the reward. As a persuader, you must find the motivating force or reward for each person you work with; must understand the wishes of the person or group. Reward Power is extremely effective in changing human behavior and increasing your persuasiveness. You get what you want with minimal effort. Let’s face it: they all have their price.
However, there are several inefficiencies to be aware of when using rewards. First of all, the law of diminishing returns quickly takes over when you employ this kind of power. Diminishing returns mean that the more you use the reward, the less powerful it becomes. When people get used to an incentive, they may get bored and expect more or lower performance standards if the incentive is removed. An example is the common practice of offering prizes to children for reading in primary school. They win pizza or other prizes after reading a certain number of books. These incentives often backfire because many children think they need a reward for reading. Reward Power eventually leads to the desired result, but the incentive usually needs to be repeated each time to get the desired result. The reward is only effective as long as the person does not see a “better deal”. Your incentive will always be compared to the next person’s offer. Rewards reinforce behavior, so as long as you use them, expect your prospects to keep demanding them.
Reinforcement theory has a lot to do with reward power and coercive power. Basically, if a person knows that a certain action will follow a positive consequence, then he will perform that action. Consequences influence behavior. The type of consequence involved influences what actions people will take and what actions they will avoid. There are three main rules of consequence. They are:
(1) Consequences that give rewards increase behavior.
(2) Consequences given by punishments decrease behavior.
(3) Consequences that do not provide rewards or punishments extinguish the behavior.
Remembering these basic rules can be an excellent guide to decide what to do in certain situations, depending on the desired result. Just be sure to keep in mind some of the limitations of the reinforcement theory. Some examples of such limitations are listed below.
Limitations of reinforcement theory
1. What is considered reward or punishment will vary depending on who you are working with and what the exact circumstances are.
2. As mentioned above, rewards can lose value over time. Instead of feeling rewarded, the person will feel that you owe them something.
3. Other sources of reward or punishment may interfere. For example, an employee may value the reward of esteem and friendship from other less productive employees more than what you have to offer.
4. If a person is only responding to a reward, then there hasn’t really been an internal change. They will revert to their old behavior if the reward is not still part of the new routine.
5. Punishment is difficult to apply well. It is a powerful tool, but it must be executed properly. Punishment must have the following elements to be effective: a) immediate, b) strong or firm, c) unavoidable, and d) consistent.
6. Punishment can breed anger, fear, and hopelessness. These negative emotions will be associated with the person inflicting the punishment.
The challenge you face when using rewards is decreased internal motivation. Once you condition them to expect something for your compliance, your prospects will always seek external rewards for their behavior. This makes them do it just for the reward and not for any other reason. We have found that even if the person were willing to exhibit the desired behavior without the reward, once the reward was given, the subject would not perform the desired behavior without the reward. An experiment demonstrated this concept. The subjects, sitting together at a table, worked on a puzzle for half an hour.
After the half hour was up, the experimenter told the subjects that the resolution session was over and that they had to leave the room. The experimenters then began monitoring the behavior of the subjects as they entered the waiting room. What would they do during their free time? Would they play with the puzzles? Would they choose other activities? The study found that those subjects who were paid to do the puzzles were much less likely to play them for fun during their free time in the waiting room. And those who did not receive an external reward for their efforts were much more likely to play the puzzles during their free time in the waiting room. Persuaders know that behavior chosen by free will lasts longer than behavior rewarded by an external reward.
Learning to persuade and influence will make the difference between expecting better income and having better income. Beware of common mistakes presenters and persuaders make that cause them to lose the deal. Get your free report 10 Mistakes That Continue to Cost You Thousands and explode your income today.
