Rewards between the Lines

The newspapers often carry vivid reminders of the management rule: "That which is rewarded gets done."

• Measure success by the number of mortgages created and you'll get a lot of questionable loans.
• Measure success by how much the stock rises and you see an emphasis on short-term efforts to drive up the stock.
• Measure nondiscrimination by hiring results instead of genuine opportunity and you'll get numbers and discrimination.
• Stress the bottom line and you'll inadvertently reward "the end justifies the means" reasoning.
• Reward pre-crisis denial and you'll get crisis.