When building teams, one of the issues is incentive pay. Since individuals are rewarded seperately, by giving incentive to just the individual, one breaks up the team.
Here's some material on incentive pay
Joel on Software - Incentive Pay Considered Harmful
It's also brought up in one of my favorite books, Peopleware, 2nd edition, chapter 28"Competition".
Liars Poker also brought up an interesting example when people only cared about their own skin and would be willing to backstab another co-worker in order to promote themselves.
How would one go about aligning motivation with the goals of the team/company? This is a classic principal/agent dilema, though people only talk about the issue but offer no solution.
Here's a set of logical thoughts. Competition cannot be fully eliminated, it's ingrained within humans as through time we struggle to survive. Companies compete for profit, which also drives innovation. However individual competition also kills teams. So perhaps one way is to foster team based internal competition. Just like in sports, teams compete against each other but not so much within the same team. It still may occur but it's mitigated by focusing the competitive drives against the other team.
In a company, teams are in charge of a particular product, or part of the product. Incentive compensation is strictly and entirely based on the team level. If there's a non-producer pulling the team down, it's up to the team to handle it. Either through peer coaching or what not. Every member of the team must approve new hires going into the team.
Here's some material on incentive pay
Joel on Software - Incentive Pay Considered Harmful
It's also brought up in one of my favorite books, Peopleware, 2nd edition, chapter 28"Competition".
Liars Poker also brought up an interesting example when people only cared about their own skin and would be willing to backstab another co-worker in order to promote themselves.
How would one go about aligning motivation with the goals of the team/company? This is a classic principal/agent dilema, though people only talk about the issue but offer no solution.
Here's a set of logical thoughts. Competition cannot be fully eliminated, it's ingrained within humans as through time we struggle to survive. Companies compete for profit, which also drives innovation. However individual competition also kills teams. So perhaps one way is to foster team based internal competition. Just like in sports, teams compete against each other but not so much within the same team. It still may occur but it's mitigated by focusing the competitive drives against the other team.
In a company, teams are in charge of a particular product, or part of the product. Incentive compensation is strictly and entirely based on the team level. If there's a non-producer pulling the team down, it's up to the team to handle it. Either through peer coaching or what not. Every member of the team must approve new hires going into the team.
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