Is the Carrot Approach Always the Best Way to Encourage Change?
The newsletter for professionals cautiously approaching the discussion about climate, but pretty sure they should.
Issue Number : 20
Gaining adoption of new practices, behavioral change, and convincing team members to adopt new sustainability measures has never been simple. Today, with so many additional external pressures, costs, and demands, it’s even more confusing- even for companies that have goals they truly desire to hit. So, what’s the best way to encourage participation? Earlier this month, I went into a short blog about the advantages of using a carrot approach- you know- offering incentives as a reward for the adaptations desired. Today, let’s explore what’s less than beneficial about always doling out the carrots.
Disadvantages of the Carrot Approach
Dependency on Rewards: People motivated by rewards may become dependent on external incentives, making it challenging to sustain the behavior without continuous reinforcement. This is kind of like how you can’t have a booth at a farm show without some serious swag-once you offer it, everyone expects it. Forever.
Costly: Implementing the carrot approach can be expensive, as it involves offering rewards or incentives, which can strain budgets. This is especially challenging in a market that goes up and down.
Short-Term Focus: Carrot-based motivation may lead to a short-term focus on achieving rewards, potentially neglecting the long-term benefits of the behavior. This one is the most interesting points to me and it’s in direct disagreement with one of my pros from the last blog. So, I think it depends on the ease of the adaptation you’re asking for people to commit to. If it’s easy and works for them, they’ll probably stick with it but if it’s expensive, costly, or inconvenient-you carrot is one and done.
Now then, we could always use ‘the stick approach’ to regulate markets and create standards and there are actually a of couple actual advantages to this…
The Stick Approach
Immediate Compliance: The threat of negative consequences can result in immediate compliance with rules!
Clarity of Consequences: The stick approach provides clear consequences for non-compliance, which can serve as a deterrent.
But, the fact is, in agriculture (and any industry that is willing to admit it), we really hate the stick approach which just relies on negative consequences or punishments and usually feels like the heavy hand of government or compliance.
So, what’s the solution? I don’t know and it depends!
No really, the answer is one that each team, company, industry will have to evaluate for themselves. There will be and should be trial and error. That’s why adaptation needs a transition, needs to be sensible, and needs to work with an industry and for the end-users, not against them. You hear me say it alot: do climate and sustainability your way. What we are really saying is that we crave some stability. I think we are still a long way from it.
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