{"id":1104,"date":"2019-08-02T10:36:08","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T14:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2021-07-27T18:31:43","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T22:31:43","slug":"your-ticket-to-employee-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/your-ticket-to-employee-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Ticket to Employee Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To many, March Madness is more than just a basketball tournament. It promises bracket competitions, buzzer beaters, and the occasional Cinderella story. And when it comes to seeing the NCAA tournament in person, there\u2019s madness indeed. At Duke, tickets to see the men\u2019s Blue Devils are so highly demanded that fans can\u2019t simply purchase tickets; instead, they must enter and win a lottery before being presented the opportunity to buy tickets. In other words, the stars must first align before the credit card can work its magic. So, what are these tickets worth? You\u2019d be surprised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In 2002, psychologist Daniel Kahneman earned a Nobel Prize for his work on prospect theory<\/a>, a behavioral phenomenon demonstrating that people often make decisions based upon losses and gains rather than an ultimate outcome. The endowment effect<\/a>, a likely extension of Kahneman\u2019s theory, is a cognitive bias illustrating that, when ownership has been established, we often lose sight of objectivity and place a greater value on our belongings. We all turn into a toddler, holding a saltshaker, yelling \u201cMINE!\u201d when being offered a much more expensive toy as an alternative. Data even shows that monkeys refuse to trade equally valued fruit or cereal once it belongs to them. If we view something as ours, we\u2019re invested and don\u2019t want to lose it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Ian Mackey<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A study published in 2000<\/a> examined the hypothetical buying and selling prices for tickets to see Duke in the Final Four. The price differences were stark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will never forgive myself if I end up missing a great game,\u201d Blue Devils fans declared over and over. Were these fans merely plagued by the fear of missing out, or was there something more to it? While the game itself could provide plenty of excitement and lasting memories, that didn\u2019t seem fundamental to the values the fans theoretically assigned to buying and selling tickets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will never forgive myself if I end up missing a great game,\u201d Blue Devils fans declared over and over.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the thought of making a hefty profit was appealing. Though that seems plausible, the respondents didn\u2019t emphasize an interest in making money. In fact, the recurring justification was that the game was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They didn\u2019t want to forego ownership of what they\u2019d hypothetically acquired \u2013 or, in other words, they seemed to have an attachment to the tickets they viewed as theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what was the disparity between buying and selling prices? When surveyed, ticket-less Blue Devils fans would be willing to pay nearly $170 to attend the game. However, if in possession of a ticket, these same fans would only be willing to sell the ticket for a price that averaged in excess of $2,400. That\u2019s a 14x markup for the selling price versus the buying price \u2013 for the same tickets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

College hoops and primates aside, the endowment effect is ingrained in all aspects of human behavior. Another study, published in the Economist<\/em> in 2010, focused on awarding employees with provisional bonuses they\u2019d have to pay back if they didn\u2019t reach their goals. People worked harder to keep a provisional bonus than when they were promised a future bonus. Why? Because they cared more about protecting what they owned than the possibility of acquiring something later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallup has found that<\/a>, when employees are given a sense of ownership in their work, this increased responsibility \u201ccan become the best way to build strong and sustainable employee engagement.\u201d If ownership increases employee engagement, and engagement leads to a more successful workplace, how can employers best harness the endowment effect?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People want to preserve what\u2019s theirs, so employers should seek opportunities to create feelings of ownership. It can start as early as an employee\u2019s first day. By making sure employees understand your company\u2019s mission and culture<\/a>, and how they fit in to it, you can cultivate feelings of ownership from the get-go. Try assigning employees to projects publicly, and make sure they\u2019re involved in the goal-setting and planning activities from which those projects originate. The workplace is filled with opportunities to create feelings of ownership \u2013 easy ways to add method to the madness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engaged employees drive results, and it starts by putting the ball in their court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To many, March Madness is more than just a basketball tournament. It promises bracket competitions, buzzer beaters, and the occasional Cinderella story. And when it comes to seeing the NCAA tournament in person, there\u2019s madness indeed. At Duke, tickets to see the men\u2019s Blue Devils are so highly demanded that fans can\u2019t simply purchase tickets; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,22,51,68,77,70,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-company-culture","category-engagement","category-inspiration-2","category-internal-communications","category-leadership","category-pop-psych","category-psychology","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1691,"href":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions\/1691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blissbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}