How INCREDIBLY consistent people are

Perhaps the biggest paradigm shift I have had in business in the past year has been around the area of people/management/and hiring..

And what is the biggest thing that I have learned? People are incredibly consistent and incredibly predictable.

By the way, when I say people are predictable, I don't mean that they are predictable as a general group but rather that they are predictable against themselves.

What is interesting is that most of the population is not aware of this. Rather, most people make generalities about people based on their "optimistic" or "pessimistic" views. Some say, "People are great, caring, giving, etc." while others say it is in people's nature to "take, steal, cheat, etc." Both groups have an incredibly simplistic view on the matter.

The truth is that people are DIFFERENT but yet, as I now say for the 100'th time, they are incredibly predictable based on their past actions.

What is interesting is a very similar optimistic/pessimistic view is shared in management.

The "optimists" focus on: how do I incentivize my employees to be great, how do I manage effectively to be great, etc.

While pessimists hit people over with a stick into submission (of course this is futile since once the individual leaves people stop working).

Here's the point: no matter what your incentive structure is you just can't put lipstick on a pig. A fat kid can't run a 10 mile race even if you offer him $50,000. Not only is he probably not motivated enough, but chances are he doesn't know how to train for it and he certaintly doesn't have a runner's heart and the good habits needed to stick it out.

On the other hand... a seasoned marathon runner might do this 10 mile race for you with no problem, and he'll do it for free.

You may believe that this is not relevant to the business world. Before we go into the relevancy of this example, let's take a step back and consider the motives of the marathon runner. Is the marathon runner running the 10 miles just because he is a marathon runner? No, he is a marathon runner because of certain convictions that he holds. For example, running 10 miles may prove to himself his determination, health reasons, etc. He may do it for self development or just to see whether he could do it (It is interesting to see research that shows that the top motivation of A players is skill improvement so that they can perform better in the future, while B & C players are more driven by fear and incentives).

The same situation exists with employees as it does in endurance running: excellence takes time, effort, and good habits... incentives just aren't strong enough to overcome our natural instincts (in theory, you could probably get sustained effort from weak players through continual training hyper incentives and years of reforming).

What can we make of this?

Once we understand this truism (YES, my opinions are now truism), we can make significantly better judgments on who we want to be involved in professionally and personally.

If someone is not self motivated in the first month, I GARAUNTEE YOU he will not suddenly become self motivated by incentivize or by "super management." If anything his performance will deteriorate quickly as his dis-motivation is during the honeymoon period.

Become perceptive and stop lying to yourself, people do not change. Make sure you pay attention to people's habits in the areas that it matters because these are the same habits they will display for the next month, year, and decade.

-David Weisburd