Candle problem: Difference between revisions

As ever, the [[JC]] has a theory: it is all about ''personal incentives''. In the same way that the average [[Survivor|wage-slave’s]] major motivator during her career is [[fear]] — and her primal instinct is the covering of her own arse (regardless of the clothedness of the organisation’s as a whole), what propels the captains of our industry is ''personal enrichment''. Solving the organisation’s, and its clients’, problems and achieving general commercial goals of the collective in a way that empowers and energises the rank and file is, you know, ''good'', inasmuch as it generates a healthy pay packet, but it is still a second order priority to generating that healthy pay packet. If, by some unfortunate turn of events, the two should conflict, it does not take a clairvoyant to work out whose interests prevail.  

Now consider the candle incentives. The CEO is in an excellent position to decide whether to go with the individual incentive or the collective incentive, because he’s the boss.  

He is also, should he go with the individual incentive, well placed to influence who among the workforce should get that $25 prize. His management suite, if they think they might get a fiver, are likely to agree with him on that. The remainder of the employee group, who are destined for a [[sugary treat with a hole in it]], may have a different view, but they are in no position it advance it, because ''no-one with any influence is listening to them''. The reason for that is because they are all on the phone to their Aston Martin dealers.  

If they ''were'' minded to rationalise they might look at it this way: in the individual incentive model, to fund the total incentive will cost $150 ($25 for the CEO and 150 between the 25 board members). To fund the collective incentive model, on the other hand, we would have to give everyone — including ourselves— either ''nothing'', or  a fiver, or ''the whole twenty five bucks''.

Now no-one likes the sound of a rolling [[donut]], so that is obviously off the table. But funding the whole organisation a fiver would cost $500, and $25 each would cost ''two and a half grand''. So, unless collaborating would create a ''huge'' increase in productivity, purely in [[cost]] terms, the individual incentive scheme is ''much'' more attractive to our shareholders...