I think however that the “all people” view is not only that of HR – it is drilled in HR by the pressure of line managers (and often even senior executives) who hate to differentiate based on performance or potential.

Actually, they don’t hate to positively differentiate the top people (those that the CEO loves so much), because these are the ones who create value for their unit or division.

What they hate is to have the realistic conversations with the rest of the organisation, the solid performers who do they job averagely (is that a word?).

And so they push HR to create these processes that treat everyone the same, in order to reduce to a minimum these feedback conversations and the time and discomfort they create in managers.

I recently wrote a series of articles on the candidate experience and spent an inordinate amount of time looking for supporting data. There is enough legitimate research by key advocates to support the theory that there is a problem, but I really wanted more hard data and we aren’t there yet. There are also leaders who are pushing for HR to embrace modern data collection, analysis and reporting. We aren’t there yet either. I’m not convinced these issues are solutions in search of problems, but obviously I don’t have the data to prove it. Talking about issues, assuming we are talking about real issues, will raise consciousness but talk alone wont solve anything. We all need to keep looking for the next best thing in our profession, listen to the grumps and do something about it.   

Incentives should never be used for long-term change.  Research on poorly designed
incentives is clear.  When used incorrectly they do more harm than good. So to with scalpels – but when used correctly they are a huge benefit.  Incentives are tools, like the scalpel.  Don’t hate the tool – hate the user. 

Too often the incentives designed are overly focused on goals, are too reward heavy
and are not short term.  Mess with any one of those levers and the result is bad for everyone.  I wouldn’t condemn incentives just because they are poorly designed and badly applied.

Incentives are not ways of doing “to” anyone.  You cannot force someone to participate in an incentive.  Incentives are decision architectures.  The person has a choice to do one thing and get a reward – do another and not get a reward. 

The problem, as already stated, is when the reward outstrips the change.  Offer someone $1 Billion dollars to manipulate the market and create a new financial instrument that can bring down an economy – most would do it.  Once again – the design if flawed, the application if flawed.  Not the tool.

When designed correctly incentives provide people with a reason to break behavioral inertia. Nothing more.  When we rely on incentives to drive more than that is when we get into trouble.  There are many reasons a company may want to break behavioral inertia – good reasons – and incentives are a very effective way to do that. 

I also don’t think incentives drive over compensation of CEOs – to me the issue of pay transparency had more to do with that than anything.  Once CEOs saw what other
companies were paying their CEOs the floodgates opened.  New “averages” were established and the “norm” changed. 

Hate the player – but don’t hate the game.