Business Insight Zone

Further to last week’s post about Malcolm Gladwell’s treatment of sports underdogs, I came across this in Gladwell’s online discussion with Bill Simmons of ESPN:

The consistent failure of underdogs in professional sports to even try something new suggests, to me, that there is something fundamentally wrong with the incentive structure of the leagues.

Turn it back to business: you’re an underdog in something, or your company is, or someone at your company is. Yet the underdog in question doesn’t try something new.

So, what’s wrong with your incentive structure?

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UPDATE, a little later on Monday: I forgot this tidbit from February

Nassim Nicholas Taleb on CEO incentives.

. . . A C.E.O.’s incentive is not to learn, because he’s not paid on real value. He’s paid on cosmetic value. . . .

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Photo by Nic McPhee, used under a CC-Share Alike license.

Category: Economics, The working life