The 3 Major Problems With Incentivizing Talent

Former NBA Coach Jeff Van Gundy once said: "Your best player has to set a tone of intolerance for anything that gets in the way of winning.”

Van Gundy, like all coaches and leaders, wanted his top talent to help him establish a winning identity. When the best player works the hardest, cares the most and complies with culture, everyone else follows.

But can an organization establish a culture when the best player doesn’t prepare or work the hardest?

Recently, Arizona Cardinals starting quarterback Kyler Murray signed a lucrative new contract worth over $230M. In it, there's an addendum that states: "Murray will need to study material provided to him by the club to prepare for the club's next upcoming game."

Murray will receive "credit" for completing his film study, but failure to meet the addendum requirements would mean he'd "be in default" of the contract. If that were to happen, the Cardinals could walk away without having to pay him. In essence, the team is incentivizing work habits.

So can an organization make a player who doesn’t naturally work hard work harder? Do incentives like this really work? Can they help us build team culture?

Extensive research has been conducted over the years looking into motivating employees to perform at a higher level when rewards are offered. According to the Harvard Business Review: “Research suggests that, by and large, rewards succeed at securing one thing only: temporary compliance. However, rewards, like punishment, are strikingly ineffective when it comes to producing lasting change in attitudes and behavior.”

Why don’t rewards work, and why are these Murray incentives likely to flop?

1. Research has found that money doesn't change habits. Even in a case like Murray's, where the player has 230 million reasons to adjust his behavior, he likely will change in the short term, not the long. Murray already believes he is different. He told The New York Times in 2020, “I think I was blessed with the cognitive skills to just go out there and just see it before it happens. I’m not one of those guys that’s going to sit there and kill myself watching film. I don’t sit there for 24 hours and break down this team and that team and watch every game because, in my head, I see so much.”

2. Rewards divide the culture. Why does Murray have to be treated differently? Teammates will be wondering why they rewarded Murray with a record deal when they know he didn't work hard. With this structure, work habits, good conduct and team commitment are no longer seen as vital to the Cardinals' front office. Can the coaches now really stand in front of the team and demand hard work since they have established a double standard?

3. Rewards make people lazy. People who have incentive-laced deals will do the work that earns them incentives, but nothing else. They have little motivation for being curious or doing more. The team then frequently doesn’t grow together and everyone only cares about their individual rewards, not the ultimate prize of winning.

If you have to use incentives for your best player to work and lead, then is he/she really your best player?