Good morning!
Here are today’s highlights:
Watch the video of Alan Pentz demonstrating how to use AI to revamp your business processes.
For many small businesses, rising oil prices are yet another body blow. Here’s how some are trying to cope.
Even in Boston, restaurants are charging nearly $50 for a lobster roll—and losing money.
Human influencers are losing business to AI influencers.
THE 21 HATS PODCAST: DASHBOARD
The Case Against Pay for Performance: For most business owners, rewarding employees for doing their jobs well is just common sense. Hit your numbers, get a bonus. Sell more, earn more. Perform better, get paid more. That’s how motivation works…right? This week, management consultant Kelly Allan asks owners to reconsider that assumption. Allan is steeped in the teachings of W. Edwards Deming, the management thinker widely credited with inspiring Japan’s post–World War II industrial revival. Deming argued that pay-for-performance systems don’t actually improve performance. Instead, they create unintended consequences—encouraging people to chase metrics, compete with colleagues, and optimize the wrong things.
In Deming’s view—and in Allan’s—performance isn’t primarily about individuals at all. It’s about the system they work in. In our conversation, Kelly explains why incentives often backfire and how owners who are curious can begin experimenting with a different approach.
You can subscribe to the 21 Hats Podcast wherever you get podcasts.
