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Aurelius · Work & Leadership
Knowledge + Guidance

Why does every comp plan I design get gamed somehow?

You built the plan. Now someone found the edge of it — the place where hitting the number stops matching the real goal. This is not a flaw you missed. It is what every incentive does, sooner or later. You and your team keep searching for the version with no gaps. There isn't one. People are smarter than formulas. They will always find the shortest path to the reward you wrote down. The real question is not how to close every gap before launch. It's whether your team has agreed, in advance, what you'll do when a gap gets found.

◆ How this problem reads on the two dials
GuidanceKnowledge
More coaching
Some to learn
1:1 with AureliusWith others (a Pod)
Some one-to-one
Practise with peers
The core truth — that incentives always leak — is simple and teachable; the hard work is building a team habit of finding and fixing leaks together.
How the two dials adapt to you →
What’s really going on

Every plan has gaps. You cannot design them away — only decide, as a team, what happens when one is found. Stop hunting for the perfect formula. Build the review instead. The gap is not the failure. Ignoring it together is.

🔒 What you’ll build togetherUnlock by starting
A moveGather the team and say out loud the three easiest ways someone could hit the target without doing the real job.
A moveName one person to own 'gap review' each quarter — not you alone.
A moveWrite down what you will do when a loophole is found, before it is found.
A moveAsk the team plainly: which number are we rewarding, and is it the one we actually want?
A moveSet a standing date to revisit the plan, not just a meeting called in a crisis.
PractiseLoophole Hunt · a Pod of 4 · 30 min

What changes unlock by starting

  • A shared, written list of the plan's known weak points.
  • A standing process for catching gaps, instead of patching them once and moving on.
  • Less blame on one person when a loophole surfaces, because the team expected it.
  • A plan reviewed on a schedule, not only after someone gets hurt by it.

Related problems

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.