Comp plans, OKRs, bonuses, promotions, public metrics. The formal architecture of reward that everyone can name.
A sales team paid on bookings will optimize for bookings — even when retention is what matters.
Status, belonging, fear, identity, ego, political safety, the unspoken rules of the room. Far more powerful than the visible layer.
Engineers shipping mediocre code because being seen as 'shipping fast' outranks being seen as 'careful'.
Structures that reliably produce the opposite of stated intent. Goodhart's Law, the Cobra Effect, moral hazard at scale.
Hospitals rewarded for procedures done — not outcomes achieved. The system performs exactly as designed.
Things every leader says matter but no system rewards. Collaboration, mentorship, knowledge transfer, dissent, long-term thinking.
'We value innovation' but every metric punishes the failure required to innovate.
Alignment dynamics between human reward systems and machine objective functions. Where AI accelerates good incentives — and bad ones.
An AI agent optimizing for engagement does its job perfectly. The damage is in the objective, not the model.
Early-warning incentives quietly forming inside customer behavior, talent markets, regulation, and emerging technology.
Talent leaving for autonomy years before salary becomes the visible reason on the exit survey.
The Incentive Intelligence Assessment™ scores your organization across every dimension and returns an executive summary, blind spots, and recommended interventions.
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