Have you heard this said about a movie,”It was so bad that it was really good!” Many people actually celebrate this ‘so bad,its good’ movies & even make money by spoofing or reviewing it.That is value-creation! People scrounge for value once they accept going in for the experience.As audience in a speech or trainees in a learning event, we can do the same.Why not? What else is there.Can you raise the bar for yourself as a learner.The measure of doing so would be to transcend & go past the ability of the content,process or the trainer.And to create meaning & value by identifying substance!

A social experiment in Israel is a good reason to explore the after-effects of putting a price-tag on desired behaviour. Our performance assessment & reward structures are built around paying good money for a job done – on specification. And a penalty or lack of increment for sub-par performance. The system works. Or does it? Here’s what happened. Parents in day-care centres in Israel used to keep anxious kids & a tired teacher waiting well past the pick-up time of 4 pm. They were habitually late. Economists monitored ten such centres for four weeks. On an average, there were eight late pick-ups per week per day care centre. The parents hurried onto the scene half guilty, half worried. Fifth week onwards, they imposed a penalty of 3$ for a more than ten minute delay. The parents were paying $380 per month. By the twentieth week, the average pick-ups per week per day care centre had shot up-to twenty, more than double the original average! Daniel Cohen, French economist puts it well, “There are things we do because we cherish them.…