By Steve Moran

Not a single company I’ve encountered boasts about having poor customer service, favoring a toxic work environment, or encouraging high employee turnover. These things exist, though, and regrettably, customer and employee dissatisfaction are higher than ever.

The Unintentional Disconnect

It is a lot easier to shout about your commitment to virtuous values than to actually execute them. This disconnect, seldom intentional, often stems from three persistent hurdles:

  1. The price tag syndrome: Let’s just say, “It’s too expensive to do the right thing.”
  2. The soap opera cycle: Personal conflicts and motivations complicate matters. Think ego, favoritism, or blame games.
  3. The leadership deficit: Not everyone who lands in a leadership role is competent enough to guide effectively.

Correcting this issue starts with acknowledging the problem exists.

The Grim Reality

Unfortunately, too many organizations that swear by noble cultures and conduct often end up rewarding detrimental behavior. Remember, incentives function as the ultimate blueprint for behavior.

What we reward — either consciously or not — shapes our team’s actions, decisions, and overall culture. A potent tool indeed, reward can backfire if there’s a discord between our professed values and the rewarded ones.

The Incentive Introspection

Let’s take a step back: What does your organization say it incentivizes? Collaboration, creativity, or customer satisfaction? These values look great on posters and slide decks, but in reality, they may not be what is guiding daily behavior.

Are team members who innovate getting the same recognition — or even promotions — as those who simply do their job and don’t rock the boat? Are leaders rewarded for building strong teams or just for staying under budget and under the radar?

Do you celebrate long-term wins or only immediate results? Often, what we say we value gets overshadowed by what we consistently reinforce with rewards, praise, or promotions.

This misalignment can create subtle but significant problems. Teams may start focusing only on the things that will earn them recognition, leaving behind the bigger-picture goals your organization claims to care about.

Some examples:

  • Claimed value: “We value teamwork.”
    Actual incentive: Individual performance metrics that reward competition over collaboration.
  • Claimed value: “We’re committed to innovation.”
    Actual incentive: Safety. Repeated success in tried-and-true methods.
  • Claimed value: “The customer comes first.”
    Actual incentive: Cutting costs, even at the expense of customer experience.

Closing the Gap

So, how do you close the gap? It starts with asking the right questions:

  1. What behaviors are most visibly rewarded in your organization?
  2. Do your recognition programs, promotions, and compensation systems align with your stated values?
  3. Are there unintended incentives that might be working against your goals?

It’s not always comfortable to take this deep dive. You may uncover truths about your culture that you weren’t prepared to face. But it’s worth it. Because when your incentives align with your values, your organization becomes unstoppable.

So, I’ll leave you with this: What are you actually incentivizing? Not what you say you value — but what your people see, day in and day out. The answer could redefine your company’s future.