Over the recent holidays I was travelling by plane back to Atlanta from Texas. Seated across the aisle from me was a frazzled-looking mother and three small children - a baby and two preschoolers. Two thoughts/feelings immediately entered my mind. One was for my own welfare and desire for a peaceful trip and the other feeling was of great empathy for the mother. Corralling three children by yourself and trying to keep them occupied for a couple of hours in a confined space is no easy feat. As the plane was taxiing to the runway, I heard one of the kids ask for ice cream. The mother told the children that ice cream was the reward for sitting quietly during the plane ride. The plane took off and halfway through my book, we landed in Atlanta. The children next to me had read and played quietly in their seats the entire trip. As I was driving home, I wondered if the kids were eating their ice cream yet. My guess was that they were.

This true story can teach us a few things about motivating others. In order for the ice cream to motivate the kids to behave in the way the Mom wanted, the children must:

1. Want and like the reward (in this instance, ice cream)
2. Be able to perform the desired behavior (in this case, sitting still and playing quietly)
3. Believe that acting in the prescribed way will actually result in receiving the reward
4. The reward must be worth the effort expended to achieve it (i.e., the pleasure of the ice cream must be greater than the potential pain of sitting still and playing quietly)

If one of these four elements had been missing, I might have experienced a very different flight that day. For example, if Mom had promised ice cream in the past for doing a certain thing, but didn’t deliver on the promise, it’s unlikely that the kids would be motivated because #3 wasn’t in place. The next time you want to motivate someone by dangling a reward in front of them, try to make sure all 4 of these factors are in place.