Inspiration Corner...

Busy as a bee - the buzz of improved performance…

Once upon a time, there were two beekeepers who worked for a company called Bees, Inc. Demand for their honey was steadily increasing and as a result, each beekeeper was told to produce more honey at the same quality.

Approach 1: Measure activities

The first beekeeper established a bee performance management approach that measured how many flowers each bee visited. The beekeeper provided feedback to each bee at midseason on his individual performance, but the bees were never told about the hive's goal to produce more honey so that the company could increase honey sales. The beekeeper created special awards for the bees who visited the most flowers.

Approach 2: Measure accomplishments

The second beekeeper communicated to each bee the goal of the hive to produce more honey. The beekeeper and his bees measured:

1. The amount of nectar each bee brought back to the hive
2. The amount of honey the hive produced.

At the end of the season, the beekeepers evaluated their approaches…

Approach 1: Results DECREASED

The first beekeeper found that his hive had increased the number of flowers visited, but the amount of honey produced by the hive had dropped. The Queen Bee reported that because the bees were so busy trying to visit as many flowers as possible, they limited the amount of nectar they would carry so they could fly faster. Also, because the bees felt they were competing against each other for awards (only the top performers were recognised) they would not share valuable information with each other that could have helped improve the performance of all the bees, like the location of the flower-filled fields they'd spotted on the way back to the hive. After all was said and done, one of the high-performing bees told the beekeeper that if he'd been told that the real goal was to make more honey, he would have done his work completely differently. As the beekeeper handed out the awards to individual bees, unhappy buzzing was heard in the background.

Approach 2: Results INCREASED

The second beekeeper had very different results. Because each bee was focused on the hive's goal of producing more honey, the bees had concentrated their efforts on gathering more nectar in order to produce more honey than ever before. The bees worked together to determine the highest nectar-yielding flowers and to create quicker processes for depositing the nectar they'd gathered. They also worked together to help increase the amount of nectar gathered by the poor performers. The Queen Bee of this hive reported that the poor performers either improved their performance or transferred to another hive. Because the hive had reached its goal, the beekeeper awarded each bee his portion of the hive incentive payment. The beekeeper was also surprised to hear a loud, happy buzz and a jubilant flapping of wings as he rewarded the individual high-performing bees with special recognition.

The moral of this story is…

Measuring and recognising accomplishments rather than activities - and giving feedback to the worker bees - often improves the results of the hive. Although it somewhat simplifies performance management, the beekeepers' story illustrates the importance of measuring and recognising accomplishments (the amount of honey produced per hive) rather than activities (visiting flowers).

Source: Workforce Performance, August 1997 US Office of Personnel Management

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