How to Design Incentive Programs That Drive Collaboration & Customer Success (Using JTBD)

Implement a step-by-step approach grounded in JTBD to reward shared success and achieve strategic goals through aligned incentives.

Does this sound familiar? You've crafted what seems like a logical incentive program, aiming to boost performance. Yet, somehow, it fosters competition between your business units instead of collaboration. Your partners seem motivated, but not necessarily towards the strategic goals you share. Often, incentive programs end up creating silos, driving short-sighted behaviors, or simply failing to motivate the right actions across your entire business ecosystem. There's a better way.

Traditional reward systems often focus on easily measured, but ultimately lagging, indicators or unit-specific metrics. They frequently fail to capture the complex, cross-functional, and partner-inclusive contributions required to deliver real customer success – which should be the ultimate objective. This misalignment isn't just inefficient; it can actively undermine your strategic goals.

What if we reframed the problem using Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD)? Instead of just asking "What activities should we reward?", …