Save girls and abolish circumcision
According to incomplete statistics, at least 4 million girls among the Maasai tribe in Kenya and neighboring Tanzania have undergone circumcision between the ages of 12 and 15. Just like killing a lion is HE Tuber considered a rite of passage for a Maasai boy, being circumcised is considered a rite of passage for a girl to become a woman in Maasai culture.
In 2011, Kenya joined other African countries in calling for the outlawing of female genital mutilation (FGM), which the World Health Organization also defines as a serious violation of women's physical and mental health. Victims suffer postoperative infections for the rest of their lives and are adversely affected in secondary education, underage marriage and family planning.
With so many negative health consequences, how did this practice become a tradition?
Legend has it that long ago, Maasai husbands often left home for a year to hunt or protect the tribe, only to find their wives pregnant with another man's child when they returned home. FGM is designed to solve this problem and prevent the wife from enjoying a normal life, thus reducing the chances of infidelity. Over time, it became a tradition and started becoming a rite of passage for girls to become women and get married.
Unfortunately, efforts by governments and non-governmental organizations to change the Maasai's FGM traditions have largely failed, through only education and legal action. Education may occasionally convince a mother to save her daughter from being cut, but the family then risks being ostracized by her own ethnic group.
To achieve lasting and rapid transformation, tribal customs must change. Alexander Cappelen's team proposed an incentive scheme to abolish circumcision based on an economic perspective.
Traditionally, if a girl undergoes FGM, her "value" in the marriage market is higher; her parents can get more bride gifts (more cows) by getting her married early, and the girl can find a husband with a higher status. Faced with these financial incentives and intense social pressure to follow tradition, most Maasai parents are willing to risk their daughters' health, even if their mothers have experienced the same tragic traditions.
In the plan to abolish circumcision, as long as the mother does not let the girl undergo FGM, the high high school tuition fee will be waived. After a girl successfully graduates, she gets a high-paying job, which not only brings economic returns to the family, but also increases the value of marriage and childbirth as her social status increases.
After the program was implemented, many high school graduates who had not been circumcised before were very successful in the village's marriage market, dispelling their parents' concerns. Additionally, in Kenyan boarding schools, FGM among women is publicly condemned and teachers educate about its associated health consequences and risks.
A girl who has attended high school and understands her rights and the risks of FGM is more likely to successfully resist her parents' attempts to perform FGM on her around the age of eighteen. The goal of the Abolition of Circumcision Incentive Scheme is to allow them to grow up to that age safely.
Through the above-mentioned African legendary stories, we can easily find that the role of motivation is far beyond imagination. Since it is powerful enough to change regional traditional customs, it is even easier to assist business management, help individuals identify problems, change behaviors, and design incentive policies for users.
2. Management common sense: avoid mixed signals to ensure successful incentives
In enterprise management, the effective use of incentive mechanisms is a necessary means to improve employee work efficiency and enhance employee initiative. Most companies will develop corresponding incentive mechanisms based on their own business and goals.
Incentives can lead people to do things they would not otherwise do by sending signals. But different incentive signals will lead to different behaviors. When multiple different incentive signals appear at the same time, "mixed signals" appear, which is what leads to the failure of incentive policies.
1. Example analysis: Why does mixed signal fail?
Types of mixed signals include: emphasizing the importance of quality but paying for quantity; encouraging innovation and risk-taking but punishing failure; encouraging long-term goals but incentivizing short-term results; encouraging teamwork but incentivizing individual success.
(1) More is less: Encourage quantity at the expense of quality
Increase quantity at the expense of quality, and the consequences may be irreversible.
Take fossil recovery, for example: In the 19th century, paleontologists in China recruited local farmers to help find fossils at dig sites. They incentivize farmers by paying a reward for each fossil fragment submitted.
Savvy farmers broke the bones they found, which significantly increased their income but of course reduced the scientific value of the artifacts.
Simple incentives are easy to implement, but the dimensions of incentives created by paleontologists are too one-dimensional. If you add another dimension to the incentive mechanism, such as the size of the fossil, the incentive can be truly effective.
Why add dimensions instead of replacing dimensions? Let’s take a common phenomenon as an example. When we take a bus in the city, we find that no matter whether there is a traffic jam or not, the bus driver will not choose shortcuts to improve driving efficiency. The reason is simple: bus drivers are paid based on hours worked, not based on the number of passengers or route efficiency. Taxis charge based on mileage, and sometimes the driver may take detours in order to earn more mileage.
The above experience is not good for passengers.
Later, Uber emerged and added another incentive dimension, allowing passengers to rate drivers. When you book a ride, the driver's cumulative ratings for many passengers are displayed on the screen. If the rating is lower, you may choose to book a different driver. Uber's algorithm monitors these ratings, and drivers who don't meet certain thresholds are no longer available.
This rating system is a simple solution that incentivizes drivers to provide good service by retaining the mileage fee incentive model while putting user experience and customer service back into focus. Later, all taxi-hailing apps followed this strategy, and the passenger experience was greatly improved.
