Even if the metric is a direct business metric that it's manaagement's job to optimize (like profitability or number of users)?
I've always thought it would be interesting to see the results if half of everybody's salary (including the CEO and the toner refill guy) was paid by dividends from shares of the company held in trust for this purpose. As in, every year, everyone's pay goes up/down by the same (relative) amount.
What if, in addition, the shares held in trust were a closed pool, requiring employees to give up part of their bonus share to any new employees hired? The expected net outcome of hiring on profitability would then have to outweigh the decreased income from a (very slightly) reduced share of profits.
I'm not certain that this is the ideal system of incentives (i.e. there might be local minima one could get stuck in), but it would certainly be an exciting experiment...
I've always thought it would be interesting to see the results if half of everybody's salary (including the CEO and the toner refill guy) was paid by dividends from shares of the company held in trust for this purpose. As in, every year, everyone's pay goes up/down by the same (relative) amount.
What if, in addition, the shares held in trust were a closed pool, requiring employees to give up part of their bonus share to any new employees hired? The expected net outcome of hiring on profitability would then have to outweigh the decreased income from a (very slightly) reduced share of profits.
I'm not certain that this is the ideal system of incentives (i.e. there might be local minima one could get stuck in), but it would certainly be an exciting experiment...