Hoping People Will Do the Right Thing

In order for a person to do the right thing, a event sequence has to occur.

1. Someone has to recognize that an action needs to occur.
2. They need to decide that they are the one that needs to make it occur.
3. They need to know what the right thing is so they can make it occur.
4. They need to know how to make the right thing occur.
5. They need to feel empowered to make the right thing occur.
6. They need to have the time to make the right thing occur.
7. They need to have sufficient internal motivation to make the right thing occur.

Now let's say we have really good people. Let's assume they were all “A” students and that nine times out of ten, they have what it takes to do the job.

With those assumptions, if we hope people will do the right thing, how often will it actually happen?

What we have here is an exercise in probability. The probability that our hypothetical worker bee will complete any event in the sequence is 0.9. The probability of completing all of the events in the sequence, and hence doing the right thing, is the product of the individual probabilities. That is 0.9 × 0.9 × 0.9 × 0.9 × 0.9 × 0.9 × 0.9 = 0.478. That means that left to her own devices, our “A” student that recognizes that something needs to be done and that she is the one to do it, knows what the right thing is and also how to do it, feels empowered and has the time and internal motivation to do it will — a little less than half the time — do the right thing.

If instead you assume that we are working with “C” students (0.7) the probability that hoping people will do the right thing only pays off 8% of the time.

So, as a management tool, hoping people will do the right thing is an exercise in futility. It is only interesting to the mathematically challenged.

Seriously, just stop it. Stop it now. Really.

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