Zhao Guojun Salary Design: Skinner's Reinforcement Theory and Its Implications

The main ideas of Harvard University professor Skinner's reinforcement theory are as follows.

Human behavior is only a response to external environmental stimuli, which is regulated and controlled by external environmental stimuli, and changing stimuli can change behavior. Through effective stimulation can strengthen a certain behavior of people, so managers can effectively stimulate the enthusiasm of employees through various reinforcement means.

In management practice, there are three commonly used reinforcement methods, namely positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and fading reinforcement, which can be applied alone or combined.

(1) Positive reinforcement: refers to giving affirmation and reward to a certain behavior of a person so that it repeats this behavior. In the management process, all acts that directly or indirectly contribute to the achievement of the goals of the organization should be recognized and rewarded in a timely manner; if this behavior is not strengthened, it means that without the approval of the organization, people's enthusiasm will fade and this behavior will not continue.

(2) Negative reinforcement: refers to the denial and punishment of certain behaviors of people to prevent similar behaviors from happening again. In management, the denial or punishment of behaviors that do not meet the expectations of the organization can promote the weakening or suppression of such behaviors, and it is also conducive to the formation and consolidation of good behaviors. There are two kinds of negative reinforcement measures, criticism and punishment, of which criticism includes public criticism and non-public criticism, which can also be divided into direct criticism and indirect criticism, and punishment includes warning, demerit, demotion, salary reduction, fine, dismissal, etc.

(3) Fading reinforcement: refers to ignoring a certain bad behavior, adopting a blind attitude, so that the actor feels that this behavior is not recognized, and slowly terminating the behavior. Managers take measures to fade reinforcement for some bad behaviors, sometimes achieve better results than negative reinforcement, any middle manager, should master the fading reinforcement of this management skill; when the employee's working distance target is expected to be larger, if the employee has done their best mainly because of lack of ability, the appropriate application of fading reinforcement is very important to protect employee self-confidence and enthusiasm.

In fact, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and fading reinforcement measures should be taken differently according to the nature of the behavior, the impact of the behavior on the organizational goals, and the individual actors. The application of reinforcement measures will have good results, and poor application will bring very negative effects, especially when applying negative reinforcement measures, we must be cautious, on the one hand, we must not hurt the self-esteem of the actors, on the other hand, we must be right about things.

At the current stage of development in our country, employees do not have a very high degree of maturity, some employees self-management, self-control ability is insufficient, only positive incentives without negative incentives can not ensure the completion of task objectives; and only negative incentives without positive incentives will cause serious dissatisfaction among employees, so the use of positive incentives and negative incentives should be balanced, employees who do a good job should be rewarded in time, where there are deficiencies should be pointed out in time and given appropriate encouragement, while managers at all levels should be proficient in mastering and appropriately apply fading reinforcement techniques.

For the latest management knowledge and tools, please refer to Zhao Guojun's latest book "Managing Nuclear Energy": How to Motivate and Perform to Promote Enterprise Development. For the latest salary design and performance appraisal content, please refer to Zhao Guojun's book "The Complete Case of Salary Design and Performance Appraisal" (third edition)

Outline of Managing Nuclear Energy (Welcome to the relevant link)