[Reward Power] We are doing a six part series on French and Raven's
power bases, the types of power.
In this video we're going to look specifically
at reward power.
(classical music)
Hello there, friends, and welcome back.
If we haven't met yet, Alex Lyon
and this channel is called Communication Coach.
We're here for emerging leaders to help you increase
your impact and ideally lead the people around you
to higher levels of excellence.
And one of the ways to do that is to get in touch
with the kinds of power
that you may or may not have at your disposal,
the types of social influence that you can use
to get the job done in and around the workplace.
And to do that we're going to look at French and Raven's
six power bases and power speaking more generally
is the ability of person A, the leader,
to do or say something to the follower, person B,
to change their behavior, their attitude or their belief.
And reward power is one way to do that.
So reward power quite simply is the leader's ability
to mediate rewards, to give a reward or withhold a reward
for compliance of the follower.
Now on the one hand a reward can clearly be something
that the leader gives so typically we think of things
like a bonus, a raise or some kind of other
financial incentive as a reward,
but a reward could also be something less tangible
like time off or maybe some professional development
opportunities, some mentoring.
There are lots of rewards and the types of rewards you give
are really only limited by the leader's creativity.
Now on the other hand a reward could also be something
that the leader removes that the follower
doesn't want in the first place.
So some amount of work for example that you can take away,
take off their plate as a reward.
Some coaches will do this.
Maybe you've been on an athletic team
and you're working hard and the season's going well.
Every once in awhile a coach will cancel a practice
or cancel the last half of practice as a type of relief,
a reward for a job well done.
I sometimes do that as a professor.
I sometimes take away something
that the students don't want as a reward like same thing
as a coach where if the class is doing really well,
I might say okay, you've all been performing well.
Your grades are good so let's cancel this last quiz
or let's cancel this last paper.
And that is a reward because it's something
that they don't want that you're removing
so you're relieving them.
So it could be giving something that they do want
or taking away something that they don't want.
Now there are a couple of details
that I wanna talk about in terms of what makes
this reward power stronger or weaker.
And one of them is clearly the size of the reward.
If you give a little reward like a 1% bonus,
that's not gonna be anywhere near as enticing, as rewarding
as a 20% bonus or a 50% bonus.
Clearly the size of the reward really does matter.
Another thing that matters is whether or not
you promise the reward versus actually giving the rewards
out at points along the way.
So a promise might sound something like this.
If you work hard and if you really do
what you're supposed to do,
then five years from now
you're going to get all these good things.
That's a promise of a far off reward in the future
that may or may not happen.
That's not as powerful as an actual reward
that's given out for specific points along the way.
So it's much better to give out rewards,
even if they're smaller rewards,
at intervals for accomplishments
for milestones that the person is meeting.
In the same way a reward has to be within my scope
as the leader to give you.
So if I end up saying that,
promising you something that's outside of my ability
to reward you with and you're going to know.
That's gonna be a very weak incentive.
If I have to for example, ask my boss
and then he or she has to ask the boss above
to get all this approval,
then me saying that you get this reward
is not really gonna have a lot of power
because you know that I don't really have the direct ability
to mediate that reward.
So a reward has to be something that I can actually give you
or something that I can take away from you,
again, that you do not want.
So those are some characteristics of what makes a reward
stronger or weaker.
Now French and Raven were often asked about this.
Is this type of power effective?
And they say absolutely it is effective
because it's really a win-win.
The leader gets to be the good person giving out the rewards
and the follower gets to receive the rewards
so giving and receiving rewards is wonderful
and as I mentioned it's very motivating
because the types of rewards that you can give
are really only limited by the kind of creativity
that you can come up with.
So it could be financial on the one side,
but it could also be something creative
like you could have a party at work
or you can bring in a professional masseuse
that can give people massages in the massage chairs.
You can have a party, you can have a guest speaker.
You can get people to travel to conferences
for professional development.
It doesn't simply have to be some financial reward.
I think that in this day and age
we can be rewarded by lots of different things.
So it's really a win-win for everybody
and I want to encourage you to think about in your position
what are the kinds of rewards
that you could give to somebody.
Or what are the kinds of things you can take away,
you can remove from people's responsibility
that they don't want to do that could be a reward as well.
So before we leave I wanted to tell you about two things.
The first one is that the next video in this series
is on coercive power.
And reward power and coercive power really go hand in hand
and so you want to make sure you look at that video.
And the second thing I wanted to tell you about
is a free resource that I would like to provide to you.
It's a PDF download on the essential communication skills
that every professional should have.
So there's a link in the description below
and it's pinned in the first comment
in that section below as well.
And you go to that link and there's an opportunity for you
to enter your email and then I email you
that free PDF download.
So thanks, God bless and I will see you
in the next video on coercive power.