---
title: Most Incentive Plans Motivate the Wrong Thing
description: Money alone won't keep your best people engaged. Learn the three drivers of real motivation and why most incentive plans only build for one.
---

[Resources — Essays on Owner Evolution | Momentum](https://jensnielsen.us/blog)

# [Most Incentive Plans Motivate the Wrong Thing](https://jensnielsen.us/blog/most-incentive-plans-motivate-the-wrong-thing)

 Written by [By Jens Nielsen](https://jensnielsen.us/blog/author/by-jens-nielsen) | September 11, 2026

Owners default to one lever: money. Bonus structures, commission tiers, profit share. It's not wrong — money matters — but it's incomplete, and it explains why some high-performing people still check out even when the money's good.

I've seen this play out the same way more than once: a top performer, well-compensated, technically hitting every number, quietly coasting. The owner assumes it's a pay problem and raises the number. It doesn't fix anything, because pay was never what was missing.

People are motivated by three different things, and most businesses only build for one: reward (what do I get), recognition (does anyone notice), and purpose (does this matter). A commission plan hits reward directly. It does nothing for the other two. That's why a top performer can be well-paid and still start coasting — the money's there, but nobody's told them their work actually changed anything, and they can't see how their day-to-day connects to something bigger than the transaction in front of them.

If you want a team that runs without you constantly pushing them, build for all three, not just one:

**Reward** is the easy one — most owners already have this covered through pay and bonuses.

**Recognition** costs you five minutes and a specific sentence about what someone actually did — not "great job team," but "the way you handled that client escalation last week kept the account, specifically." Vague praise doesn't register. Specific praise does.

**Purpose** means your team understands what the business is actually for, not just what their individual job is. If someone can't explain in one sentence why their role matters to the bigger picture, that's a gap you created, not one they're responsible for closing.

Miss two out of three, and money alone will only get you so far — and eventually it stops working at all.

[View full post](https://jensnielsen.us/blog/most-incentive-plans-motivate-the-wrong-thing)

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