Upgrade culture through rewards and candor

TaylorCorp’s HR team once rolled out a unified bonus plan promising equal payouts to all department heads if the company hit its targets. Within two years, morale declined: top sales leaders worked flat out, only to see their rewards matched by those who barely delivered. Performance flattened.

Learning from this, TaylorCorp’s leadership team examined behavioral science on incentives. They restructured rewards into two buckets: “quick-strike” cash bonuses for immediate goals— hitting quarterly revenue and quality targets—and “marathon” equity grants for multi-year strategic execution, such as launching new markets. This dual system aligned motivation with different timelines.

Next, they held peer calibration sessions—fun, lively forums where department heads presented hard data on each other’s results and behaviors: who delivered on their promises, who collaborated best across silos, and who managed risk effectively. Facilitators ensured candor by reminding the group that true collaboration means giving honest feedback.

Within six months, the changes reshaped TaylorCorp’s culture. Top performers got the sums they deserved; marathon leaders stayed focused on long-term imperatives; and everyone knew exactly which behaviors were valued. Turnover fell by 30 percent, and revenue growth outpaced competitors. In practice, precise rewards plus open dialogue creates a self-reinforcing loop of accountability and strategic alignment.

You’ll gather your leadership team and say, “We’re splitting incentives into cash for this quarter’s hits and equity for our multi-year plays.” You’ll then host a peer calibration session, asking each leader to bring one slide of data on a peer’s performance and behaviors. In that roundtable, you’ll facilitate honest, concise feedback. Let everyone see the formulas and the criteria—in other words, make the reward system so transparent that no one can claim they didn’t see exactly what it takes to win.