Molson Hart

Makes sense. Most of my orgs settled on 60/40 or 70/30 company/personal goals bonus schemes. Despite this study, it seems to work well! Good luck.

Thanks, I will need it. It really needs to be done on a case by case, year by year basis. Best not to say "we will always do 70/30" because if you're running out of cash, you need to do what you need to do. That said, fascinating that you've seen higher company work best.

I read a book called Made in Japan by the founder of Sony. The Japanese way of management and raises gave me a lot to think about. Increasing salaries solely by seniority creates a lot of cohesion and company loyalty. It has its downsides obviously, but its probably underrated.

Neat — I think that behavior contributes greatly to the types of industries where Japan Inc has thrived (autos for example) and failed (software).

The idea being that great software is often a great individual effort while autos and most physical products require much more team coordination?

I haven’t done business in Japan, so this is all reading second-hand.. The business culture there compliant and hierarchical. That helps you build safe, cheap great cars. Bad for software. You need experimentation and risk-taking at all levels of the org.

I've done some business in Japan. I think you're right. That said, I am more impressed with the risks a physical product company takes than a software company. Japanese have proven to be risk takers and innovators, though as of late, there are not so many examples.

Sony is a great example.