A teacher scribbles a breakdown of the last exam grades on the projector: 65 A’s, 107 B’s, 98 C’s, and 43 F’s. Average: 82.5.
A number of students feel great because they easily beat the average. Others feel shitty—they blew it and seeing all those A’s is salt in the wound. And then the grades are erased from the board.
But instead of just reporting the grades, what if the instructor offered this instead: if the class average on the next exam increases by five points, everyone gets five bonus points on the next exam.
Or what if she went a step further, putting students in small groups with an equal distribution of A, B, and C students in each group? And offered each student five bonus points if his group’s next exam average increased by five points?
Would students work harder, knowing that classmates are counting on them? Collaborate more? Form study groups and foster a community of learning rather than just trying to master the content solo?
Group incentives in higher education are on my mind, but the logic applies to everything we do:
The next time I run a contest for my sales force, I’ll break the reps into small groups and incentivize the performance of each group, not just individuals. The result I expect: sales reps will not only work harder, feeling accountable to one another, but share valuable advice with other members of their group, teaching their colleagues how to be more successful.
Too often in life, we reward winners and brand others as “losers” without providing any reason for individuals to help one another. What we should be doing is incentivizing collaboration and the success of the entire group. If we want better results, we need a new type of grading.