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Knowledge + Guidance

How do we build a pay plan that won't backfire?

You want a plan that rewards good work and nothing else. Understand this now: no plan does that cleanly. The moment you measure something, someone will optimize for the measure instead of the goal. This is not a flaw in your team. It is what measurement does to people. Your group is building this together, which helps — more eyes catch more holes. But it also means more blind spots hiding behind agreement. A room full of good intentions can still wave through a plan that pays for the wrong behavior. Stop asking "is this fair." Ask "what does this plan let someone get away with." That question has an answer. Fairness is a feeling. Exploitability is a fact you can test.

◆ How this problem reads on the two dials
GuidanceKnowledge
More coaching
A little to learn
1:1 with AureliusWith others (a Pod)
Some one-to-one
Practise with peers
A few core ideas about incentive design matter, but the real work is stress-testing your specific plan together, which is coaching, not instruction.
How the two dials adapt to you →
What’s really going on

You will never design away self-interest — you can only account for it. Assume someone will chase the number, not the purpose behind it. Your task is not a perfect formula. It is to find where the plan rewards the wrong thing, fix it before launch, and set a date to check again.

🔒 What you’ll build togetherUnlock by starting
A moveList the three worst things a person could do to maximize this plan, then check if the plan actually stops them.
A movePick your main metric and ask what it leaves out — pay for that too, or watch it quietly die.
A moveSet the 90-day review date now, before launch, not after something breaks.
A moveAsk the most skeptical person on the team to try to exploit the plan out loud, in front of everyone.
A moveSeparate the number from the whole reward where you can — don't let one metric control a person's entire paycheck.
PractiseBreak the Plan · a Pod of 4 · 30 min

What changes unlock by starting

  • A plan with known weak points instead of hidden ones.
  • A review date already on the calendar before anything goes wrong.
  • Shared ownership of the plan's risks, not just its goals.
  • Less reliance on good faith, more reliance on structure that holds up without it.

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One object, two jobs: a public answer to a real problem, and — the moment you start the chat — Aurelius’s live plan for your version of it.