5 ms·

Well, if you want them to have teeth there could be a contract where you either pay them X amount on success or Y if you fail to achieve a pre-negotiated goal.

Well, if you want them to have teeth there could be a contract where you either pay them X amount on success or Y if you fail to achieve a pre-negotiated goal. With Y > X of course. To avoid setting bad incentives, i.e. that your boss still wants you to succeed, he personally should get a bonus out of the X even though the company earns less.

jlawson 8y ago
The boss management company is then incentivized to hire incompetent bosses. Their entire business model is profitable in proportion to how often it fails. The perverse incentive has to land somewhere; not sure there's a way to neutralize this one. But it's an interesting idea.
- hndamien 8y ago
  Maybe if you transparently advertise the success rate it would neutralise since hiring incompetent bosses would result in less sign-ups. That said, not sure you could accurately verify that number.
Jarwain 8y ago
Maybe instead of paying the boss more if you fail, donate to charity or some other financial loss. A charity you don't like for a negative penalty if needed. If you fail, you pay the charity an amount Y. If you succeed, you could do nothing, or give the Boss a bonus of .5Y for being a good boss
- stevep98 8y ago
  http://www.stickk.com/ http://www.stickk.com/ does this
osrec 8y ago
Could you explain why Y > X and not the other way round?
- the8472 8y ago
  X is their base fee. The difference is your precommitted punishment. Want to keep the money? Finish your project.
  - osrec 8y ago
    Interesting, but doesn't this incentivise the boss to not do their job quite so well? Edit: read the second part of your original comment which clarified this. Perhaps the charity idea circumvents the wrong way risk altogether.
    - jwally 8y ago
      What if the money was donated regardless. But if you fail it goes to an organization you don’t like. For instance say I don’t like Donald trump. If I fail my money goes to trumps reelection fund. But if it succeeds it goes to a charity that buys malaria nets for poor communities around the planet.
  - derekbreden 8y ago
    For me personally, I believe it would be most effective if I payed more (or only) when I completed tasks. At the end of the day, that's what's happening anyway. As in, why continue the service if it's not working. The incentives are already set so I am willing to pay (more) for successful management, and they will get paid (more) for successful management. You get what you pay for. Why pay for failure?
    - yebyen 8y ago
      Read the Beeminder blog if you want to understand why pay more for failure... let me find one[1][2] (link below) You should want to avoid the payment! Is the short version. If you _only_ paid when you failed, you might go out of your way to not fail, if it meant you could avoid the payment. Especially as a conditioned response -- eg. planning to fail sometimes. You won't mind losing $5 once in a while, if most of the time you aren't failing as a result. It's no fun if you're paying the $5 every time. But it's no fun if you're failing at your goals every time, either. Failed once, failed twice, still paying $5? Why not up the commitment? How much will it take to get you to not fail next time, $20? $400? Or give up on that goal, once and for all. It's quite a weird system, but there is a lot of behavioral science behind it, and you will benefit by becoming better at predicting your capacity for important things, and planning. (Sure, you don't need Beeminder to do that, but it's a system for it...) There are a lot of ideas around the psychology of getting things done from Beeminder and friends. Like the legend of Murder Gandhi, you have to read this one for yourself: https://blog.beeminder.com/schelling/ https://blog.beeminder.com/schelling/ [1]: https://blog.beeminder.com/psych/ https://blog.beeminder.com/psych/ [2]: https://blog.beeminder.com/punishment/ https://blog.beeminder.com/punishment/
fjsolwmv 8y ago
This is beeminder.com
- conner_bw 8y ago
  Was 100% certain this was me until I realized it wasn't about beer.
ThrustVectoring 8y ago
Paying money if you fail is counterproductive for actually getting things done. You're now allowed to fail, it just costs money. There's a case study I remember of a daycare that tried to get parents to show up on time by fining those who picked their kid up late; late pick-ups actually increased afterwards.
- nsnick 8y ago
  That was in Freakonomics. http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what-they-do/ http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what...
- em-bee 8y ago
  but that's a different problem. parents are already accountable to the daycare to pick up their kids, and the payment enabled them more flexibility and actually reduce the accountability. we are paying an after-school service for exactly that purpose. bossasaservice is about voluntary accountability where there previously was none. and it's fully in my control on how i use it. part of the point of being a freelancer (or entrepreneur) is that i get to decide what i am accountable for and what not.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > parents are already accountable to the daycare to pick up their kids In the absence of consequences, they are obligated but not accountable to the daycare. > and the payment enabled them more flexibility and actually reduce the accountability. No, it replaced ethical obligation (which, insofar as it is accountability, is accountability to self) to defined-consequence accountability to the daycare, which in practice negates ethical obligation in favor of transactional accountability. How that works out in price depends on the weight of the ethical rule involved for the individual vs the weight of the assigned consequence; it is counterproductive where you replace a strong ethical obligation with a weak consequence. People often overlook that other people have ethics; that's actually useful self-protection in many situations, but it backfires when you undermine common ethics in an effort to create incentives and manage to replace it with weaker incentives than the target audience had from ethics in the status quo ante.
em-bee 8y ago
i seem to remember a service where you'd pay in on a regular basis, and only if you achieved your goals you'd get a payout that you'd then be able to spend on holidays, or a party or whatever.

jlawson 8y ago

The boss management company is then incentivized to hire incompetent bosses. Their entire business model is profitable in proportion to how often it fails. The perverse incentive has to land somewhere; not sure there's a way to neutralize this one. But it's an interesting idea.

hndamien 8y ago
Maybe if you transparently advertise the success rate it would neutralise since hiring incompetent bosses would result in less sign-ups. That said, not sure you could accurately verify that number.

Jarwain 8y ago

Maybe instead of paying the boss more if you fail, donate to charity or some other financial loss. A charity you don't like for a negative penalty if needed. If you fail, you pay the charity an amount Y. If you succeed, you could do nothing, or give the Boss a bonus of .5Y for being a good boss

stevep98 8y ago
http://www.stickk.com/ http://www.stickk.com/ does this

osrec 8y ago

Could you explain why Y > X and not the other way round?

the8472 8y ago
X is their base fee. The difference is your precommitted punishment. Want to keep the money? Finish your project.
- osrec 8y ago
  Interesting, but doesn't this incentivise the boss to not do their job quite so well? Edit: read the second part of your original comment which clarified this. Perhaps the charity idea circumvents the wrong way risk altogether.
  - jwally 8y ago
    What if the money was donated regardless. But if you fail it goes to an organization you don’t like. For instance say I don’t like Donald trump. If I fail my money goes to trumps reelection fund. But if it succeeds it goes to a charity that buys malaria nets for poor communities around the planet.
- derekbreden 8y ago
  For me personally, I believe it would be most effective if I payed more (or only) when I completed tasks. At the end of the day, that's what's happening anyway. As in, why continue the service if it's not working. The incentives are already set so I am willing to pay (more) for successful management, and they will get paid (more) for successful management. You get what you pay for. Why pay for failure?
  - yebyen 8y ago
    Read the Beeminder blog if you want to understand why pay more for failure... let me find one[1][2] (link below) You should want to avoid the payment! Is the short version. If you _only_ paid when you failed, you might go out of your way to not fail, if it meant you could avoid the payment. Especially as a conditioned response -- eg. planning to fail sometimes. You won't mind losing $5 once in a while, if most of the time you aren't failing as a result. It's no fun if you're paying the $5 every time. But it's no fun if you're failing at your goals every time, either. Failed once, failed twice, still paying $5? Why not up the commitment? How much will it take to get you to not fail next time, $20? $400? Or give up on that goal, once and for all. It's quite a weird system, but there is a lot of behavioral science behind it, and you will benefit by becoming better at predicting your capacity for important things, and planning. (Sure, you don't need Beeminder to do that, but it's a system for it...) There are a lot of ideas around the psychology of getting things done from Beeminder and friends. Like the legend of Murder Gandhi, you have to read this one for yourself: https://blog.beeminder.com/schelling/ https://blog.beeminder.com/schelling/ [1]: https://blog.beeminder.com/psych/ https://blog.beeminder.com/psych/ [2]: https://blog.beeminder.com/punishment/ https://blog.beeminder.com/punishment/

fjsolwmv 8y ago

This is beeminder.com

conner_bw 8y ago
Was 100% certain this was me until I realized it wasn't about beer.

ThrustVectoring 8y ago

Paying money if you fail is counterproductive for actually getting things done. You're now allowed to fail, it just costs money. There's a case study I remember of a daycare that tried to get parents to show up on time by fining those who picked their kid up late; late pick-ups actually increased afterwards.

nsnick 8y ago
That was in Freakonomics. http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what-they-do/ http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what...
em-bee 8y ago
but that's a different problem. parents are already accountable to the daycare to pick up their kids, and the payment enabled them more flexibility and actually reduce the accountability. we are paying an after-school service for exactly that purpose. bossasaservice is about voluntary accountability where there previously was none. and it's fully in my control on how i use it. part of the point of being a freelancer (or entrepreneur) is that i get to decide what i am accountable for and what not.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > parents are already accountable to the daycare to pick up their kids In the absence of consequences, they are obligated but not accountable to the daycare. > and the payment enabled them more flexibility and actually reduce the accountability. No, it replaced ethical obligation (which, insofar as it is accountability, is accountability to self) to defined-consequence accountability to the daycare, which in practice negates ethical obligation in favor of transactional accountability. How that works out in price depends on the weight of the ethical rule involved for the individual vs the weight of the assigned consequence; it is counterproductive where you replace a strong ethical obligation with a weak consequence. People often overlook that other people have ethics; that's actually useful self-protection in many situations, but it backfires when you undermine common ethics in an effort to create incentives and manage to replace it with weaker incentives than the target audience had from ethics in the status quo ante.

em-bee 8y ago

i seem to remember a service where you'd pay in on a regular basis, and only if you achieved your goals you'd get a payout that you'd then be able to spend on holidays, or a party or whatever.