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It... really doesn't. Sales is a great example. In companies where bonuses are based on, say, revenue booked per quarter, salesmen play all kinds of games to
by donw 3y ago
It... really doesn't.
Sales is a great example.
In companies where bonuses are based on, say, revenue booked per quarter, salesmen play all kinds of games to jack that number up as far as it can go, regardless of the collateral damage. Piss off the engineers by promising the impossible? Who cares, I closed that McScully deal. Sold a customer a product that won't actually solve their problem? Cha-ching, bonus time!
Now, when you figure out how to tie sales bonuses to positive outcomes... that's a different story. Then the incentives match the actual goals.
But that's really hard to do. Outcomes can take years to measure, if they are measurable at all.
Hence why you end up with all kinds of really screwed-up corporate behavior. It's not because people or corporations are evil -- they just take the shortest path to the win, even if that's not really the road you wanted them on.
- WalterBright 3y agoCompanies fix it or they go out of business. I've seen them tweaking it.
- donw 3y agoThat only applies to small companies. Schools are equivalent to large companies, and large companies can screw the proverbial six ways from Sunday for years before it hurts their bottom line, for any number of reasons. Many Americans seem to have this mental disease whereby they think every problem can be solved with more money. This problem can't be.
- WalterBright 3y agoLarge companies still have plenty of incentive pay. Currently, teachers have zero incentive to get results. I bet you'll see results that follow incentives. Of course it won't be perfect - but I bet it'll be much better than the current disaster. People like money. Especially the people who say they aren't motivated by money :-)
- saagarjha 3y agoI work for a large company notorious for shooting itself in the foot because someone’s personal incentives to ship a shiny new thing and get promoted causes long-term repetitional harm as older things get abandoned. We pay for performance too, and quite well at that :)
- wcarey 3y agoHave you thought out the perverse incentives your pay scheme would create?
- viraptor 3y agoLike teachers giving answers to students because higher grades / more passing means more money...
- WalterBright 3y agoHave a third party do the testing.
- duckmysick 3y agoWhat will be their incentive? Bonuses for the number of tests graded?
- wcarey 3y agoWhile that might (or might not) mitigate one perverse incentive, there are lots more. It's important for policy proposals to take unintended consequences into account. What others can you foresee and how would you mitigate them?
- bandrami 3y agoYou really need to see more of the actual economy, because this is embarrassingly naive.
- condwanaland 3y agoYou have another comment somewhere here saying that 80% of companies close within 5 years. You may be making the other sides point...