He now looked at the snake and felt bad; he had robbed it of its supper. He looked around his boat and noticed the bottle of Jack Daniels he had brought along. He unscrewed the cap and poured a shot down the snake's throat. He then released the snake who slithered away.

The man went back to fishing. Five minutes later the snake returned; he now had two frogs in his mouth.

I wish I remembered where I first heard this story so I could give proper credit. If you know, please let me know in the comments section below.

I share this story because I told it the other day to my friend Chantal Young over lunch who thought it was funny. I was sharing some lessons I had learned from reading Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. In the book they talk about the Japanese tradition of rewarding behavior over results, because by rewarding results you may be training your employees to use tactics can actually harm your business.

One example was the Russian drilling company that rewarded employees based on how many feet they drilled. Well, it turns out that shallow drilling is a lot easier than drilling deeper. So, employees drilled plenty of shallow holes that would never hit oil because it was easier to get bonuses that way.

It's something I've struggled with over the years, especially as I try to reward behaviors that help our clients as well as those that make us more profitable; sometimes the results are not what I expected. In these cases I have no one but myself to blame.

When you're looking to reward employees, be very careful of exactly what you're rewarding