Incentive schemes are everywhere in business. Bonuses. Commissions. Short-term rewards designed to drive performance.

And yet, for so many leaders, these beautifully designed schemes quietly fail to deliver what they promise. Worse, the unintended consequences often outweigh the benefits.

In this episode of Lead to Grow, we unpack the dark art of incentive schemes and why so many well-intentioned reward structures distort behaviour, damage motivation, and fail to improve real performance.

This is not an argument against incentives. It is a practical guide to when they work, when they fail, and how to design them intelligently if you choose to use them.

You will learn:

• Why leaders fall in love with incentive schemes and why they are often overused
  • The difference between improving performance and simply redirecting effort
  • Why money is a blunt instrument for motivation
  • The intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation equation and why it matters
  • How incentives can quietly reduce job satisfaction and engagement
  • When incentives actually make sense and when they backfire
  • Why complexity kills most incentive schemes
  • How poorly designed schemes distort behaviour and damage trust
  • The downside risks most leaders never anticipate
  • Why incentives rarely fix capability, culture, or leadership problems

We also break down where incentive schemes can work, particularly in sales and output-driven roles, and how to think about:

• Whether a role is genuinely suitable for incentives
  • Pay splits and what ratios make sense
  • Thresholds and why 75% matters
  • Caps vs uncapped schemes
  • Time horizons and payment frequency
  • Rules, edge cases, and why clarity matters
  • Retention vs attraction dynamics
  • Designing schemes that are actually self-funding

Finally, we outline the hallmarks of a well-designed incentive scheme, including:

• Job simplicity
  • Line of sight
  • Pay split alignment
  • Caps and escalation
  • Rules and edge cases
  • Time horizons
  • Thresholds
  • Management discretion
  • Base salary alignment

The core message is simple:
Incentive schemes are powerful, but they are blunt instruments. They are the exclamation mark, not the sentence.

When used well, they create clarity and focus.
When used poorly, they distort behaviour, undermine motivation, and create long-term problems disguised as short-term gains.

If you are considering implementing an incentive scheme, or questioning whether your current one is actually working, this episode will help you avoid expensive trial and error.

Connect with us:

Tommy Sim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommysim/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/injecthrYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@injecthrInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/inject.hr/

If you lead people or design reward structures, this episode will change how you think about money, motivation, and performance. Subscribe to Lead to Grow for more practical, human-centred leadership insights.

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Why do so many leaders keep hiring the wrong people?

In this episode of Lead to Grow, we break down why hiring is not a gut-feel decision, not a resume contest, and definitely not luck. Hiring is a prediction problem. And most leaders are playing it with the wrong rules, under the wrong pressure, using the wrong tools.

We explore how common hiring processes feel logical on the surface but quietly set leaders up to fail, costing businesses months of lost productivity, damaged relationships, and expensive turnover.

If you are responsible for building teams, scaling a business, or leading people, this episode will fundamentally change how you think about hiring.

You will learn:

• Why hiring is a probability game, not a personality judgement
  • The cognitive biases that quietly sabotage your hiring decisions, including affinity bias, confirmation bias, halo and horns, conformity bias, and contrast effects
  • Why leaders often hire based on experience and confidence, but fire based on attitude, aptitude, and behaviour
  • The critical difference between comparative hiring and absolute criteria
  • How hiring too quickly takes you out of the market before the right candidate even arrives
  • The “Venn Diagram of Assessment” and how to stack tools that actually predict performance
  • Why resumes and reference checks have far less predictive power than most managers believe
  • How structured behavioural interviews, personality profiles, and aptitude testing dramatically increase your odds
  • Why experience alone is one of the weakest predictors of future success
  • How Blue Ocean thinking applies to hiring and how to escape the red ocean of average candidates
  • Why dynamic criteria like learning agility, attitude, and behaviour outperform static criteria like years of experience
  • How great hiring fails without the right environment around it
  • Why hiring great people into a weak system does not fix the system, it exposes it

This episode is not about hiring unicorns. It is about building a repeatable, defensible hiring system that gives you better outcomes consistently, not occasionally.

If you are tired of feeling unlucky with hires, this is where the luck ends and leadership begins.

Connect with us:

Tommy Sim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommysim/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/injecthrYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@injecthrInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/inject.hr/

If you lead people or plan to, this episode could save you months of lost time and thousands in wasted salary.

Subscribe to Lead to Grow for more practical, psychology-driven leadership insights.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Lead to Grow, Tommy Sim unpacks one of the most misunderstood and costly leadership skills: clarity in communication.

Many leaders believe they are communicating clearly, yet research consistently shows that half of employees do not fully understand what is expected of them at work. The result is wasted effort, poor prioritisation, rework, anxiety, disengagement and in some cases, lost talent. Studies suggest this lack of clarity can cost businesses between $10,000 and $20,000 per employee, per year.

Tommy explores where leadership communication commonly breaks down, why being direct is not the same as being understood, and how assumptions like “they should know” quietly undermine performance. Using practical examples, stories, and research, he introduces the Seven Pillars of Leadership Clarity and the Five Cs of Communication Clarity, giving leaders practical tools they can apply immediately.

If you have ever thought, “But I already told them that”, this episode is for you.

Connect with us:

Tommy Sim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommysim/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/injecthr

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@injecthr

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/inject.hr/

Key Topics Covered

• Why most leaders overestimate how clear they are
• The hidden cost of poor leadership communication
• Where clarity breaks down most often in organisations
• Strategy and incentive schemes as common sources of confusion
• Why “take initiative” and “be proactive” often fail
• The Seven Pillars of Leadership Clarity
• The Five Cs of Communication Clarity
• How to check for understanding, not compliance
• Why clarity is kindness, not control
  
  

The Seven Pillars of Leadership Clarity

1. Clarity of direction: where we are going and why
2. Clarity of role: what my job actually is today
3. Clarity of priorities: what matters most right now
4. Clarity of performance expectations: how success is measured
5. Clarity of communication and behaviour: what “good” looks like
6. Clarity of development and growth: where my career is heading
7. Clarity of the task itself: what success looks like this time

The Five Cs of Communication Clarity

• Clarity: Say exactly what you mean
• Consistency: Reinforce the same message over time
• Colour: Use stories, visuals, and examples
• Connection: Tailor the message to your audience and build trust
• Curiosity: Look for understanding, not agreement

Episode Takeaways

• Being direct is not the same as being understood
• Clarity is measured by how a message lands, not how confidently it is delivered
• Poor clarity creates waste, anxiety, and misalignment
• Strategy and incentives often fail due to communication gaps, not design flaws
• Leaders must take responsibility for others’ understanding
• Asking “any questions?” is rarely enough
• True clarity creates calm, confidence, and performance

Timestamps / Chapters

00:00 Welcome to Lead to Grow and the cost of poor clarity
02:21 Why communication failures are so expensive
04:43 Where leadership miscommunication shows up
06:58 The problem with “take initiative”
09:23 Why strategy often fails to land
11:49 Incentive schemes and confusion
14:17 The Seven Pillars of Leadership Clarity
19:07 Common communication traps to avoid
23:32 How to know if you are actually being clear
25:59 The Five Cs of Communication Clarity
28:25 Final reflections: clarity is kindness

Who This Episode Is For

• Leaders and managers
• Business owners and founders
• HR and people leaders
• Team leads and executives
• Anyone responsible for driving performance through people

Listen, Watch, and Subscribe

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
📺 Watch the full episode on YouTube
⭐ Leave a five-star review to help more leaders find the show

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