Individual incentives – a curse!

Any organization is a system created with a purpose. Can an organization achieve its goal with only
1 person or function? Then would it be called an organization? It’s like saying engine is the most
important part of the vehicle – wrong! Engine serves no purpose if the other parts of the vehicle do
not participate. The vehicle move when engine and all the other parts work together. You may still
spend most of the vehicle servicing time on engine, but that does not make it the most important
part. Because the concept of most important part in a system is deceiving!!!

Most organizations decide the goal for the year and then leave it to functional leaders/department
heads to decide their objectives for the year which is in alignment to the company’s goal. And what
does the department or functional heads do? They try to break it down further for their team
members and more importantly try to race their team members against each other. What is our
basic assumption when we do that – when people race against each other collectively all will end up
at a better place.