Does Punishment Work? Absolutely but Probably Not...

“In order for a consequence like punishment to be effective, we must come in contact with the consequence. Using threats in an attempt to avoid danger or damage are simply idle threats that can be a dysfunctional practice that kills your safety culture.”

LISTEN TO PODCAST

READ FULL ESSAY

I was intimidated.  I was invited to do a workshop for the top HSE executives in a very large international corporation (far above my paygrade).  I was invited out to dinner where they sat me next to the “grand poohbah” vice president in charge of all things quality and safety.  During our dinner he leans over to me and poses a question in the form of a statement.

“Tim, I understand the principles you discussed today suggesting we don’t blame the worker if we wish to understand the systems we need to change when someone gets hurt.  But, you should know that I think firing someone every now and again gets me great results. What do you think about that?”

In a more recent conversation with a more affable (and humble) HSE executive of a textile corporation I was asked a similar question in the form of a statement:

“We are making good strides in building our safety culture across our many plants.  But there are some plant managers who insist that punishment is the way to manage safety.”

“Does punishment work?”

The answer, my friends, is “Absolutely”.

Punishment is a fundamental behavioral principle first described by BF Skinner himself who defined it as any consequence that decreases behavior.  It is the opposite of reinforcement which he defined as any consequence that increases behavior. So, “yes”, punishment fundamentally works.

Yeah, but probably not.

PUNISHMENT IN SAFETY IS REALLY A THREAT

By the time someone gets hurt, or otherwise gets caught, because they committed an unsafe act… we’ve already lost and so have they.  They suffer pain and/or some employment sanction. Here punishment works and this person will probably not do that at-risk behavior again.  This point is most certainly true if they lost their job and lose the chance to try again.

However, we make the assumption that the rest of the workforce will avoid the at-risk behavior that got the person in trouble.  In fact, we assume that our discipline programs that outline rules and punishments will keep people in line. Now we’ve gone away from the fundamental principle of punishment and have found ourselves leveling threats to our workforce.

See, in order for a consequence like punishment to be effective, we must come in contact with the consequence.  Therefore, you have to do the at-risk behavior and it has to be followed with punishment. When you are threatening, you are trying to stop the at-risk behavior before it starts.  The problem is that these people have not had experience with the punishing consequence. So you are left making idle threats that can be a dysfunctional practice that kills your safety culture.

THERE ARE A BUNCH OF PROBLEMS WITH THREATS

Threats are merely antecedents that suggest a punishing consequence will come if you behave in a way that violates rules.  Those threats have to be acted on to work. Then, in order to work, the punishment threatened must be: 

1. Personal – This is covered.  A person’s job is quite personal to them.
2. Prompt – We blow this one.  Punishment often is delivered quite distant from the behavior.  It is not like getting spanked right when you stick your finger in the cake.
3. Probable – Not even close.  Ask yourself what the probability is that someone will get punished if they violate a rule.  First, they have to get caught. Second, the supervisor has to decide if the paperwork and disgruntled workers are worth following through on discipline.  Go ahead and try to put a percentage on the probability that rule violations at your site will result in discipline. I bet it is below 1% of the time.

Workers learn that threats are not acted on making the discipline program an ineffective deterrent compared to the personal, prompt and probable reinforcing benefits of taking the short cuts.  If this is the case then we have perfectly set up the environment for our people to take these short cuts. Our system of punishment will not protect them.

In fact, discipline programs may decrease our attention to the needs of our workers to have an environment where they can work safe.  I am always amazed when managers and workers scratch their head when they discuss at-risk behavior that goes against their rules. It is as if they think a rule locks in the behavior compulsively.  But behavior doesn’t work that way. The competing personal, prompt and probable consequences of taking the short cut will win some, if not most, of the time

We build a fortress of rules with a discipline program that can give us the illusion that we have control over the risks that could be taken in our workforce.  This shapes complacency among leaders and reinforces a culture of finding faults instead of working toward solutions. This dysfunctional practice truly kills your safety culture.

“Discipline must be part of an active safety management system because it can work. But it should be the last line of defense and not depended on as the primary behavior management tactic. Like I said, by the time someone needs to be disciplined, we’ve already lost.”

NOW DON’T GET ME WRONG.  

There need to be cardinal rules.  Those who violate these rules, putting themselves and others in grave danger, do need to come in contact with consequences within proper justice procedures.  

I remember standing up one of my first behavioral safety programs with a group of steel workers in Ohio.  We just got done talking about how observations must be “no name-no blame” in order to earn the participation of the workforce enlisting them to help find solutions to at-risk behavior.

During one of the breaks, they had me up against the wall insisting that there are things that can kill you in the plant and they will not stand by letting a fellow worker, with a family, avoid discipline.  They were right and I’ve been designing behavioral safety programs with this in mind ever since.

Discipline must be part of an active safety management system because it can work.  But it should be the last line of defense and not depended on as the primary behavior management tactic.  Like I said, by the time someone needs to be disciplined, we’ve already lost.

Behavioral science provides alternatives to punishment to decrease the at-risk behavior.  The first is “extinction”. The fact of the matter is that the at-risk behavior is being reinforced by something.  Take that something away. However, this may be hard to do because it is difficult to make short cuts more difficult.

The second, more functional way is known scientifically as “Differential Reinforcement of Desired Behaviors”.  This is a fancy way of saying “reinforce the safe behaviors and the at-risk behaviors will be replaced”. Reinforcing safe behaviors is a big part of behavioral safety programs fostering cultures where reinforcement is the norm.  Build discipline through reinforcement instead of punishment and you get more sustainable results.

I GET RESULTS WHEN I FIRE SOMEONE EVERY NOW AND AGAIN

The final illusion, espoused by that VP during that evening dinner, is that when people see someone get fired they begin to comply with the rules and expectations.

Not true.  The punishment did not happen to them.  Yes, they saw what happened and know it would suck for them too.  Yes, they want to avoid it. The problem is that most people don’t know specifically what they need to do to avoid this punishment.  

Punishment can seem arbitrary and unevenly distributed.  Go ahead and ask your workers which among them is the “golden child” who can do no wrong and which are the “usual suspects” that just seem to have the ire of supervisors.  To most it is unclear how you might stay away from “ire”.

This leads to what the science calls “superstitious behavior” meaning folks will just start doing whatever to avoid being on the bad side of the boss.  It is really a shotgun approach trying to discover what works. Workers are a lot better than salaried people at this. They learn quickly that when the boss comes around they need to alert each other with a whistle and then pull out the tape measure because no one gets in trouble measuring stuff.

But a threatening work environment sends salaried folks into frenzies of activity when someone gets fired or even called out by the boss.  They (you?) simply don’t know how to really avoid these seemingly arbitrary events (perhaps based on the boss’ mood) do they just start doing a bunch of stuff, the equivalent of measuring things, or, worse, pass on the threats to the next level of workers.

So my answer to that VP that night was not what he expected:

“Sir, you are under an illusion that what you’re doing works.  What you are really getting is a bunch of random activity from your reports in an attempt to gain your favor or avoid you.  My guess is that your bosses did the same over your career and you’re the one that figured it out how to suck up to them. Is sucking up behavior what you’re looking for?”

I earned a laugh for that reply.