7:30 am - Mon, Mar 2, 2009

Incentives Dictate Behavior

This truism is as obvious as it is overlooked.  It never surprises me whenever I see people who are sold A but actually receive B.  Before buying into any good, service, or idea, look at the seller’s incentive structure first, and only after careful examination of the motivations, consider the pitch.  There is a level of misdirection used in many pitches that makes them akin to magic.  However, there is no such thing as magic, just magicians and other people’s perceptions.  If you align the right incentives into an organization with an authentic and consistent outcome, you can embed a desired belief system where the resulting behaviors and culture can appear to be magic.  Presto!