We saw an article recently about a French cafe that encourages politeness through their price list. Order a coffee, pay one price. Say “please” and pay a little less. Add a “good morning” for the barista, and the price drops even more. It pays to be polite…literally, in this case.

Some might think it is unfortunate that it has come to this, that people have to be paid to be polite. Then again, maybe the customers would naturally be polite, and they are just being rewarded for doing what they would do anyway. But it does offer an example of a concept we advocate so strongly that we would tattoo it on our chests if we could: if you want to change behavior, change the rules.

When organizations undergo a change, whether a dramatic reorganization or simply a normal evolution, they often need different types of performance from their employees than they expected before. Shifting from in-office to remote work, for example, means you need people to display more self-discipline and initiative. Reducing the size of your workforce may require more collaboration and less independent effort when you need to share knowledge rather than relying on a lot of individual experts.

When you need that change, all too often organizations simply tell employees “work differently” without backing it up through rewards and punishments that support the new expectations. If you tell people to be collaborative, but then 90% of their performance review is based on hitting individual KPIs, they will focus on individual work. If you tell your sales team that growing your market share is the goal for this year, but you pay bonuses based on sales revenue, they may spend more time upselling current customers than they spend looking for new ones. If you want to change the people act, you need to back that up with actions that actively encourage and facilitate those new behaviors.

As we wrote a year ago, your policies in the workplace should match the behaviors you are trying to get from your employees. If your stated expectations conflict with your policies, people will follow your policies no matter what you say in town hall meetings and no matter how many motivational posters you hang in the elevators. If you want people to act differently, you need to give them a reason that aligns with their interests, rather than relying on “just because.”

Now, with that out of the way…bonjour, un cafe s’il vous plait.