Two of the biggest truths of my career (and life in general) pertain to the power -- for good and bad -- of incentives. One, is the basic truth that what you INCENT is what you REAP. Put another way, show me the incentive, and I can tell you the outcome.
We humans tend to confuse attributes and outcomes, so often come up with incentives for our co-workers, clients, partners, peers, children, etc. that are misaligned with our outcome goals.
Unsurprisingly, this leads to bad outcomes.
The remedy is to begin with the end in mind, actually taking inventory of what success looks like, what the integral steps are to getting there, ensuring that incentives reward those outcomes, and over-communicating both the incentive and the GOAL of the incentive.
Narrative matters, and so how we manage incentives and measure results is critical.
The second truth, which is an immovable object in my opinion, is to NEVER underestimate the power of people's ability to convince themselves of ANYTHING when they believe their livelihood depends upon it.
We often confuse company objectives with self-interest and the need for self-preservation, and so we get steamrolled when we expect people to act in ways that our counter to their self-interest, irregardless of company goals.
The solution is empathy, and investing in understanding the various stakeholders, their goals, constraints and biases, and being ready to play the long game when those elements don't line up, as they often don't.
In my experience, this is not specific to industry, seniority, or stage of life. It is elemental to people's reason for being, and we forget that fact at our own peril.
