I show this video on the first day of class as it is a stark illustration of how difficult it is to align the incentives of individuals with the goals of a company. At Lincoln, they do it by devoting lots of effort to measuring individual productivity. When you have a good performance metric, it is much easier to design incentive compensation schemes that (i) give employees enough information to make good decisions; and (ii) the incentive to do so.
It's interesting that the interviewer was surprised that the employees were happy. Shows how far America has shifted away for pay for performance.
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