In Drive, Daniel H. Pink explores “The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.” The intro concepts break down the broad types of motivation — Motivation 1.0 covers our striving to satisfy survival needs. Motivation 2.0 covers our responses to external rewards and punishments — carrots and sticks.

Motivation 3.0 covers what intrinsically motivates us where there are no external rewards, no concrete personal “carrots.” For example, people spend much time and effort on Wikipedia; or people stop to help a stranger; or someone who spends hours practicing violin with no interest in a professional career.

Ironically, when someone does something for its intrinsic motivation — say, for interest or fun — the application of an extrinsic reward can often ruin it, “transform[ing] an interesting task into a drudge. [Extrinisic rewards] can turn play into work. And by diminishing intrinsic motivation, they can send performance, creativity, and even upstanding behavior toppling like dominoes.”

With Drive in mind, I read about Whole Foods’ new Team Member Healthy Discount Incentive Program as reported by Jezebel.com. This program offers employee discounts beyond the normal 20% for non-smoking employees who opt-in and demonstrate qualifying
cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and body weight as measured by BMI.

Applying extrinsic rewards and punishments (like a discount) to what is otherwise intrinsically motivated (like healthy lifestyle pursuit) — that’s a motivation killer. Maybe that’ll be no problem for those who already score at a 30% discount, but for those who have been struggling with weight, this program is a motivation killer.

What were they thinking?

But perhaps John Mackey and the other execs at Whole Foods did consider the studies of Motivation 3.0 in designing this program. Maybe this program is NOT intended to motivate weight loss, etc.; perhaps it’s intended to accomplish something else entirely. Warning: Whole Foods employees beware.

The incentive discounts slide on a scale, greater for those with better scores. The scale begins with a 22% discount for someone whose blood pressure is less than 140/90, cholesterol below 195 or LDL below 110, and whose BMI is below 30. The scale tops out at a 30% discount offered to one whose blood pressure is below 110/70, cholesterol is below 150 or LDL below 80, AND whose BMI is below 24.

If your BMI is 30 or above, you still get your regular 20% discount, which means the 30-somethings will get paid less than their thinner co-workers. “Because (as Jezebel.com brilliantly observes) if public health research has taught us anything, it’s that reducing people’s buying power totally makes them healthier. Stay classy, Whole Foods.”

But, you say, Whole Foods is spending lots of money to motivate weight loss, and cholesterol lowering, etc. Maybe not so much. The program’s rules state that one’s discount is dictated by where one’s weakest score falls on the program chart. For example, you can have a BMI below 24 (30% discount level) and blood pressure below 110/70 (30% level), but if your cholesterol is say 180, your discount is limited to 25%. The 30% discount level for cholesterol is below 150.

I’m sure there are some few people out there who have genes that allow a below-150 cholesterol score without drugs, but I’ve never met one. For most, genetics precludes a 30% discount without the taking of a prescription drug — every day. Thus, very few will ever qualify for the 30% or even the 27% discounts.

This genetic roadblock seems unfair — and a sense of unfairness is a force-multiplier for external rewards/punishments destroying intrinsic motivation.

Encouraging widespread use of prescriptions also seems contrary to Mr. Mackey’s stated purpose for the program — to lower Whole Foods’ employee health care costs.

If the program seems ill-designed for its stated purpose, what other (unstated) purpose might it be serving?

To what other uses can Whole Foods put this private health information? Well, what would stop Whole Foods from creating a regular compensation structure based on weight and cholesterol? A discount is clearly a form of compensation — and this one based on weight.

What would stop Whole Foods from using this info in deciding who to promote? The union would stop that, right? Wait … never mind. (Mackey reportedly said having unions is like having herpes.)

If Whole Foods were able to demonstrate that lower weight, cholesterol and blood pressure could lower health insurance costs for the company, could it use the data to design a hiring practice based on weight, cholesterol and blood pressure? But where would he get the data to support such a claim?

I’ll try not to be paranoid, but this looks like a slippery slope to me. And if John Mackey’s political philosophy has taught us anything, it’s that we must rely upon ourselves in this world. Anything else smacks of socialism.

So, what limits does the program place on Whole Foods’ use of the personal health information? Well, while the program poster announces that “the privacy of your personal health information is important to us”, the poster makes no actual promise of privacy, confidentiality, or limitations on use of the data. One must apparently look to the fine print of the program materials to discover what, if any, limits there may be on Whole Foods’ use of the information.

Since very few people will ever qualify for the 27% or 30% discount, Mr. Mackey may have come up with a very cheap way (a 2 to 5% discount) to get employees to voluntarily disclose highly private data.

Since the program violates motivation theory and is highly unlikely to work to lower employees weight, etc., let me ask again —

What were they thinking?

Later,
Rob Favole