What Leaders Get Wrong About Motivation

Coby: Hey Eric, wanna go get a treat?
Eric: Yeah, but are you driving?
Coby: Yeah
Eric: Ok, let’s do it.
Coby: All right
Nicole: Hi, it’s producer Nicole Denson, and today we’re talking with Eric Jackson, Executive Vice President of Client Operations at Big Leap. Since 2006 he’s worked with hundreds of clients across more than two dozen industries, including brands like NBC, Dell, and Kroger. Known as a jack-of-all-trades, Eric blends digital marketing expertise with business operations and customer success to help teams adapt to the constant shifts of the online world. Back to the show.
Coby: So what’s new? What’s new at the BL?
So my, At the BL.
Eric: At Big Leap?
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, quite a bit, man. Like, we’re gearing up to change, some things within, Big Leap.
I think we’re gearing up for a great new year.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. We just had our kickoff. Everybody’s super inspired to hit our goals.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: I mean, you know this, but our brand-led, performance initiative, the Big Leap way. It’s starting to get some traction.
Coby: People are liking it.
Eric: Yeah, they are. It’s nice.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: It’s nice that they’re finally trying to, like, actually get it, too.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: I think they. They weren’t really connecting the dots, but it seems like those dots are being connected now.
Coby: Well, and also, it’s like, we’ve heard this before kind of a little bit too. Right? They wanted to see it take.
Eric: Yeah.
Coby: They wanted to see that there was some longevity and there’s some staying
power behind the initiative and.
Eric: And the practical application. When people see, like, the value it
brings, that’s what they latch onto.
Coby: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing that’s super exciting? What’s the most exciting thing you’re doing right now?
Eric: Trying to figure out our team P&L. Is the most exciting thing, but that’s also the most not exciting thing that’s going on.
Coby: Yeah. Like. Yeah, I can see that because. Because, Part of me went, oh. And the other part of me went….
Eric: Yeah, exactly.
Coby: It’s just. So how do you. How do you keep that fresh?
Eric: Well, I think, it isn’t me usually driving the freshness of it. It is how we’re adapting to the marketplace proactively and how we pay for such things. Like, how do we deliver
value within a budget.
Coby: Yeah.
Which is always, I mean, that’s agency life, but that’s any business.
Eric: Yeah.
Coby: And, So, yeah, what comes to me is the freshness that, the marketplace brings or that
Someone like you brings with a new take or a new spin that we need to kind, of adapt. Have to.
Right? But unfortunately, I’m kind of relegated to the position of that sounds awesome. Now how do we pay for it?
Coby: Yeah, right. And that’s, that’s got to be really tough.
Eric: It can be. Only because I, I often get pigeonholed.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: In conversations, it’s like, oh, great, here comes Eric again, talking about how we’re going to pay for this business. Can’t we just be inspirational and visionary for once?
Coby: So do you ever find that, I mean, maybe that’s what you’re saying, that you would like to switch the roles and you would like to be able to be the, for lack of a better term, kind of the rainbows and unicorns, dude. Like I am usually.
Eric: Not necessarily. I don’t necessarily need a change of role. I just know that as my role has evolved, in my career, but also here at Big Leap, people forget that, there is other skill sets and other opportunities for conversation. There are people way better at the visionary than I can be.
So I don’t necessarily need a change in my role, but I can be a contributor. And I think sometimes, that’s forgotten a little bit.
Coby: Yeah. Okay.
Eric: Not a big deal, though.
Coby: Well, I, I’m just going back
and thinking through the conversations that I’ve been a part of in the last four or five months.
And yeah, like, hey, great idea here.What if we did this? I mean, those come from lots of different places.
Eric: They do.
Coby: But they, but they all have to pass the Eric smell test, every single one of them. And so, I see you as the vital kind of connector or common thread among all the innovation or all the different things. Like it’s just, an idea. Maybe a bad idea, maybe a shitty idea. But the first litmus test is Eric’s response. And if this is gonna fly in practicality and in practice.
So, I mean, I guess, yeah, in a way that is kind of your. Your. The henchman of. You’re like the, the executioner of nascent fun things to do, but you’re also the enabler of those nascent functions. Fun things.
Eric: I would hope so. I, I like that label much better than the executioner. But it’s funny you say that because over the years, I was gifted a little mini Thor hammer. People started calling me the hammer.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. And you know, part of that is my delivery. Right. It’s, it’s very no-nonsense, very direct, but
Coby: –which I’ve referenced in another podcast with Jamie about how much I love it and appreciate it.
Eric: Well, I, I think it does provide value, as long as it’s not misinterpreted, which sometimes it
can be if I haven’t built the right amount of trust with people. Right? But what you see is what you get with Eric, quite frankly.
Coby: So has that always been the case?
Eric: No.
Coby: Or has that been an evolution?
Eric: No, it’s been an evolution. You know, in other conversations we’ve
talked a little bit about trauma and therapy and things like that. I used to be very much a people pleaser and just go with the flow and do whatever I can to, to look like I’m, you know, providing value. And that is usually manifested by pleasing, you know, the person that I needed to please, whoever that was in the role. But I’ve learned that, being a little bit more authentic to myself and every phase of my life, whether that’s, you know, whatever the setting is, whether it’s work, home, whatever. I found it was a disconnect. It was causing me a lot of, angst trying to people please because I felt like a different person in different settings. Yeah, I didn’t like it.
Coby: There’s no integration.
Eric: Yeah, no integration. And, that was challenging for me. Caused some health issues. And, I wanted to change. A lot of that came about in, you know, a relationship change.
Okay. I was able to kind of see who I wanted to be and, and who I could be
and how I could provide value to myself and be authentic at the same time. So.
Coby: Okay. Yeah. Okay. So have you found. So as you’ve made that change in your
core relationship with yourself, is what I’m hearing, then that has changed how you engage with other people?
Eric: It has. Okay. Yeah.
Coby: So what are the ways that it is changed how you engage with other people? Like, okay, so you don’t please them anymore. What has replaced. What has replaced the pleasing?
Eric: It’s, it’s a hope and a delivery that we talk about what’s real. Because I think sometimes
people don’t put out, whether it’s passive aggressiveness or whatever. People don’t always put out what they’re, they’re feeling or what they’re hoping for. And I think my hope in how I engage with people is to draw that out, talk about what’s real and then sift through what’s real and come
to an outcome that people can be happy about rather than just settling. Because I think sometimes people just settle.
Coby: So it sounds like. So talk to me about how that works and how that changes
the dynamic in terms of. Of motivating them, which. That’s a big part of your job. I mean, you’re a people manager. Right. And so a big part of what you do is having is requiring or keeping,
teams, performing at their best. And since all the teams are all about people, it’s really
just people management and getting the best out of people. And if you’re going at them, you know, with realness, especially if it’s relatively new to that person that you’re managing or mentoring, that can be very scary and the opposite of motivating. So how does that. How do you turn that into successful motivation?
Eric: Oh, that’s a great question, man. I, don’t always get it right. I’ll be the first one to say that.
But I have found that I can still, be frank and direct. Once I built trust with people, once
I understand their motivators, once I understand what incentivizes them or how they, you know, like to be motivated or what they’re motivated by, if, If I have a good understanding of that, then I ask a lot of questions. My style is very much investigative.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: And it causes them. And sometimes they’re direct questions, to cause them to think on what outcome they really want, from any sort of, decision or engagement that they’re working towards. Any leader can go in and say, this is what you need to do. Yeah. Right. And I think a lot of leaders default to that,
Coby: –because they feel probably that they’re not providing value unless they have an answer.
Right, right. Which is. We’ve talked about that. That’s not necessarily what leadership is.
Eric: No. I don’t believe it to be. I think that we’re always learning. I’m not always going to have the answers. But if we can, you know, put it all out there, as I was referencing earlier.
We just talk about what’s real. We ask the questions that are necessary, we build a lot of trust together, and then that individual usually comes to an outcome, that they want, that they envision, but that’s also beneficial either, to who, they’re serving other people management opportunities or the business.
Coby: Okay.
Eric: So that, that.
That’s the approach I take. Again, I don’t always get it.
Coby: Right. So what motivates people? I mean, I mean, if you’ve done and
you’re asking these questions and you interface with lots and lots of People
on a weekly basis, like, I mean, at Big Leap, like, 90% of the staff roll up to you. Right. Or something like that. Right?
Eric: That is true.
Coby: So you, you got your finger on the pulse. You’re curious and inquisitive by nature.
You have created a leadership framework that is about curiosity and asking questions as opposed to trying to show up with the right answer all the time or whatever. Which I think is brilliant. So what have you learned about what motivates people?
Eric: I’ve learned that it’s very unique to the individual. And I learned that, incentives
speak louder than, values.
Coby: Oh, that’s fascinating. So unpack that for me.
Eric: Well, I think that, values are the thing. They can be a guiding force. They are what influence judgment. They don’t necessarily always influence behavior as much as we want to. Values, value alignment is important, especially in a business. Right. But it isn’t what, drives the behaviors that people are looking for. In fact, if you don’t have the right incentives in place, you can have unintended consequences and unintended behaviors. And so the system, that you want to design around incentives has to be intentional enough and drive the unique individual.
Coby: So it has to be unique, but it also has to incentivize the behavior that you
want but for that individual, which is not necessarily the same for everybody.

Coby: So, where are we going today?
Eric: We’re going to Swig.
Coby: Okay.
Eric: We’re going to Swig today because it’s really important to me that we go to Swig. It’s very important.
Coby: So why Swig?
Eric: Well, I have not really latched on to the dirty soda craze, but we had a Big Leap event
Recently, and it was tasty, man.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, they are.
Coby: What did you have at the Big Leap event?
Eric: Oh, what was it called?
Coby: I don’t know. I don’t know what you had.
Eric: I don’t remember.
Coby: I, I, I had. They didn’t have an orange creamsicle, so they made an orange creamsicle kind of ad hoc. And it was better than
a normal orange creamsicle.
Eric: I think it was called City Edition. I had Mountain, Dew, Tiger’s Blood, some lime in it. It was really nice. Something else.
Coby: Okay, so what are we gonna get at Swig? I’m gonna get whatever you’re gonna get.
Eric: I don’t remember what I wrote down.
Coby: I think it might have
Eric: Mountain Dew in it.
Coby: Mountain Dew?
Eric: Yeah.
Coby: Mountain Dew is kind of your go to, Yeah?
Eric: Yeah. Well, it has been. I’ve tried to Be off it, because it’s a little bit too much caffeine for me.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Ruins the sleep, you know?
Coby: Was it you that told me that Mountain Dew was the original energy drink?
Eric: Original energy drink, yeah.
Coby: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s neon green,
so it’s like she gives him.
Yeah, my.
Eric: My dad used to call it beaver piss. Beaver piss?
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Coby: We’ve called it something piss as well in my family. Different than that, though. But the piss was the same. And which swig are we going to Swig?
Eric: It’s actually closest to my house. It’s off SR92 in Lehi. Yeah, short drive.
Coby: Oh, cool. So it’s really short.
Eric: Short drive today.
Coby: Yeah. You’ll have to be really succinct with what you want to share
today, it’s going to be.
Eric: –well, I’m good at succinct.
Coby: You are good at succinct. We’ve already referenced that in other ones. Okay. So I’m going to get the same thing you’re going to get, but you don’t remember what it’s called?
Eric: No, because I haven’t been involved in this craze. I’m not a regular at Swig.
Okay. But it is close to my house, and my wife goes occasionally, and I’m
not familiar with the menu, so I don’t remember what it’s called.
Coby: What’s your wife get? On her way into Adobe.
Eric: It has Fresca in it. That’s all I know.
Coby: They got something with Fresca in it.
Eric: They’ve got a Fresca one that she really likes.
Coby: I love Fresca. Yeah. I think maybe that’s gonna.
Eric: Our, conversations don’t center around dirty soda. But when she does go, it’s the one with Fresca. The one. When I pick it up for her. She says it’s the one with Fresca.
Coby: So. Okay, so I’m going to order the one with Fresca.
Eric: Okay.
Coby: And it’s going to work for us.
Eric: You’re going to play Renee today.
Coby: I’ll play Renee.
Eric: Cool.
Coby: It’s cool. I’m excited.
Eric: I’m excited for this.
Coby: All right.
Eric: Let’s make it happen.
Coby: All right. So, like, it is the antithesis of idealism. It is Machiavellian in a way to concede.
But this is on brand for you, keeping it real, that incentivization is the root driver for the behavior you want and not values.
Eric: I think the values are a framework that, you can still hire towards employees specifically, that can still be a guiding force. But what drives behavior. It’s unfair to have values override
incentives at times, I think, and I’m very guilty of this because values, to me are a motivator.
They’re not to everybody.
Coby: Yeah.
But they are inherently motivating for me. And so sometimes, as a, people manager
or people leader, you expect values to kind of override incentives.
Coby: Yeah. That is unfair: It’s unfair because then you can use their values against them to get a behavior that serves you and doesn’t serve them.
Eric: Yeah. And then I mentioned earlier, unintentionally, sometimes you,incentivize things,
that drive the wrong behaviors. If you don’t have things structured and a good understanding of what motivates people, then, there’s a lot of unintended consequences. Because if you think about it, Coby, what gets measured eventually becomes the job.
Eric: Yeah. Oh, there’s a famous quote. Well, not a famous quote, and it’s probably by somebody that most people would know, but he’s a philosopher. But it was against that. It was the moment. The moment you measure something, that becomes the goal, not
the thing that the me that you’re measuring for to whatever. –I I killed it.
Eric: Because if you think. I love that quote, quite frankly, because, you know, metrics,
and I’m going to use one of your words that you use a lot metrics kind of shape attention.
Coby: Right.
Eric: And then attention shapes your priorities and goals.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: And then the priorities shape your behavior. So if you’re unintentionally incentivizing certain, attention or priorities. Then you’re driving the wrong behaviors.
Coby: Yes.
Eric: All if you don’t really, you know, work it out, into a bonafide kind of incentive system.
Coby: You’ve read Freakonomics?
Eric: I have, yeah. Yeah.
Coby: So we’re talking a little bit
about that kind of thing. A little bit.
Eric: A little bit, yeah.
Coby: So are you comfortable in this forum without naming names? Of course. And in aggregate, give me some insights or give the camera some insights as to what drives
the folks at find themselves in a middle management layer. Are there some consistencies
that you see, given that incentivization is highly personal. Right. But we all are human and have
basically the same operating system. Right. We have a behavioraleconomics operating system. So it’s like, what. What are some similarities that you’ve seen at Big Leap? It’d be the director level. I’m really interested to understand this.
Eric: Well, there are. There are common themes and incentives. Right. Because of what you suggested. Human behavior. Right. We’re all built similarly. Right. But we’ve been shaped differently. Right. So that’s why it becomes unique, to an individual. But there are common bands. If we’re looking at directors or anyone at Big Leap, compensation. Right. There are quite a few people at Big Leap that are motivated by, the compensation factor. Like, what’s in it for me? Because that’s the main reason people come to jobs Yeah. Right. So that’s why you see most incentive plans driven by, you know, compensation. They want to drive that behavior.
Right. Here’s the thing, though. Not everybody is driven by that.
Coby: And so I’m not.
Eric: Well, I’m not either. In fact, we did that as a senior leadership team, looked
at our motivators, and we found some really unique, things that changed how we interacted. You look at, Bryan, for instance. What would you say motivates, Bryan?
Coby: Well, having had the opportunity to work with him on a pretty intimate level, to develop Agency Brand’s brand, and to develop the ideology for Big Leap, I can tell you what I know it is. I can tell you what he will say it is. He says it’s the opportunity to give people he cares about and loves the chance to do what they want to do professionally. I think that’s huge. It’s a huge part.
It’s why he’s such an f***ing awesome CEO.
Eric: Agreed. Agreed.
Coby: And we’re leaving the f***ing in, and we’re leaving that one in too, because he deserves 2, 3, 4. I’m in a math problem now.
Eric: Yes, you are. You’re just gonna keep adding up.
Coby: Yeah. N plus one.
Eric: He’s demonstrated that for years. Like, that is. It’s a core driver. You can tell, because that is what influences every conversation.
Coby: Every conversation.
Eric: What we found out in taking, in doing some of these conversations
is that he’s very motivated by the almighty dollar.
Coby: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Like that, too. Like, I, for years, defaulted to the fact that he wanted to provide a great space for people to find their value. I defaulted in a lot of conversations
with Bryan over the years and missed the financial piece that motivates him. No longer.
Like, our conversations have shifted in the past several years because I can pair those up.
And that’s where I say it’s unique to the individual. Because if you understand that, you understand that, you know, going into every conversation, what the outcome can be for that particular conversation.
Coby: So it seems that the, the motivation by the dollar. And there’s a lot of different ways
to be motivated by the dollar. There’s lots of different, like I would call that across a behavioral
spectrum there’s identity motivations and belonging motivations and status motivations and purpose motivations and ease motivations and control motivations, that are all different
levels of driver, all against a dollar or that are wrapped up in what a dollar represents.
Okay. So that said, there seems to be tension or you could say that there’s a tension that gets created in Byian for instance in his two different primary motivations. A dollar motivation and a wanting to provide opportunities for people he loves to do the things they love to do Motivation.
And they are at odds or can be at odds. And that’s where the beautiful complexity in people shows up.
Eric: Yeah, they are quite frankly at odds. We see that a lot
in conversations that he and I have.
Coby: Well that my question is do you think that that’s, that is a, A core facet of human personality? In other words, is that something to always look for? If you can nail one motivation but you don’t know where the other is, can you solve for what it is by looking
for what would be intention with the already identified core motivation?
Eric: Yeah, I think there’s often a primary motivator, specifically when you’re talking about employment. Yeah, but. And it’s often compensation. But to that point there are secondary
motivators that could be just as strong or that fuel that primary motivator that you need to be able to tap into.
Coby: Yeah
Eric: You need to be able to understand it. And that goes back to the values piece. If you’re dealing with someone that is motivated by compensation, but they want to do it in a, you know,
they want to do it with integrity. Right. Or they want to do it in a way
that builds trust, then you need to have that understanding.
Otherwise it’ll fall flat. You can’t just throw an incentive out there that’s compensation based
but falls flat elsewhere for that individual or group of individuals.
Coby: Do you see that incentives and flavor of incentive are similar for different personality types? I’ll give you. And it’s kind of maybe a stupid question but I worked with in a, in a Bitcoin.
Not wasn’t bitcoin. It was a cryptocurrency ecosystem startup at Silicon Slopes. Launched a bunch of different brands at the same time. One of them was development company called Nerd. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it.
Eric: No, I don’t think I have.
Coby: And one of the insights, kind of one of the key values that they were to trying, trying to build around was the idea of gamifying incentivization, in your development teams.
Right. And it was all based on the premise that, you get credit for what you, you know, for some great find, like basically our innovator of the month award kind of thing.
Eric: Nice.
Coby: You know, I, took a look at it and my critique was I don’t think that most developers care about credit, across the company. In fact, a lot of them are pretty shy. They don’t want the spotlight. What most of these developers want is they want greater say in the roadmap
of the product they’re working on. They want greater control over what they’re building because it’s their creative expression and it’s because they care about this and they don’t, they don’t want external validation. They want self-determination, to use my parlance. It was pooh, poohed. They’re out of business now. And I think one of the reasons why is because they just didn’t effing listen, to lots of people. But that was a lesson for me. That management, the guy who managed that is a great dude. If I said the name, you’d know who he is. Really great dude. He, the way that he built incentivization was a mirror of how he wanted to be incentivized, not
how the folks that he was managing wanted to be incentivized. And he couldn’t see it.
Eric: It’s a classic mistake in designing those systems.It’s classic.
Coby: So is that, I mean, how have were those classic mistakes made by you?
Eric: Oh, yeah, yeah. Early on in my career it was like, hey, this is what I value. And so other people are going to value that. Yeah, this is what motivates me. So this is how other people be motivated.
Coby: So when did you start? When was the inflection point in your career where you’re like, okay, maybe I need to look at this differently?
Eric: That’s a great question. I think it was a series of inflection points, mostly just in the course
of making mistakes, realizing why I was making those mistakes. Okay, it wasn’t any specific conversation, but maybe a series of conversations with people over the years that either I directly reported to or directly reported to me just trying to find, hey, how do we reach the same outcome?
Coby: Yeah
Eric: How do we arrive at the same place and what’s going to motivate you to get there?
Coby: I love that framing. This is the place I’d like to get to. Is this the place or similar.
In the same ballpark, you know, same coordinates of where you’d like to get to, and if so, what’s the path you want to take to get there?
Eric: There’s usually in business common goals that the business wants to achieve. Right.
And so if you have a direct reporting relationship, the whole point of leadership is to visualize and help remove roadblocks to get people where they know that they need to go.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: And part of that is really just framing. Are we looking for the same outcome here? Right.
And if you frame that, then you can start framing, well, what’s going to motivate you to get there.
Coby: I feel like that is very powerful.
Frankly, that’s how I built my process too, is what I call the aspiration, the outcome.
Right.
Coby: So I really like that
Eric: life is really about incentives and what motivates you. I mean, even just to get out of bed.
I used to, in interviews, often ask, what gets you out of bed in the morning? Because I really wanted to understand primary motivators. What I mostly got was people saying what they thought I wanted to hear. Right. We had interviews. In fact, we still reference it. This one guy just kept doubling down on, I like a good project. It’s like, nah, dude, no one gets out of bed for a project. Like, expound on that, tell us what’s real, and back to, you know, wanting what’s real.
Anytime I’m conversing with something, I really want to understand them better because that’s. That creates depth in relationships.
Coby: So what incentivizes you, Eric?
Eric: I alluded to it earlier, and there are a few people at Big Leap like this, and we found it out when we were doing it as senior leadership and finding out our motivators. There’s two primary thingsI want to feel understood and that I’m contributing in some way. Like, there’s some impact in what do I. What do I do within the business or within a relationship day to day.
You know, in a positive way. Obviously sometimes there’s going to
be negative impact, but what motivates me is, is having impact and being able to measure and see that impact. Additionally, because it’s not money.I like money. It pays for things that I like to do.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: But it is never going to be what I lead into or lean into, quite frankly. If you’re, if you’re throwing out a commission plan for me, I’m usually going to default to, well,
how’s it going to impact others? How’s it going to impact me? How do we contribute within this framework? And yeah, the money can be secondary. Thanks for that, by the way. Right, thanks. Thanks for the money. But that’s not the important part. The important part is the, measurable outcomes.
Coby: I see. So if I were going to translate that into my parlance, it would be self-determination.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Coby: Like creating a delta against a goal. Calling your shot. The shot’s important. The shot affects people. The shot is something that not just you care about, but other people care about. And you’re making a demonstrable delta against that.
Eric: Yeah. And the secondary motivator is how it’s going to impact others. Can I create, can I help to create something? And similar what Bryan’s motivators are.Can I help to create something that is meaningful to others, that will impact their lives in a positive way? Like can we take care of people? Can they ensure when they come to work that they’re being considered?
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: That they are feeling valued. That they, have the right motivators in place or right incentives in place to carry out their work. A lot of the things that we’ve done over the years operationally is with the lens. How does it impact our clients and create excellence and how does it impact, our people?
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: And a lot of the transparency that you see and the financials that we present and the way that we communicate, has been a big driver for me. I’ve worked pretty tirelessly with Bryan to say, hey, this company status update, this is what’s important and we should, give more information. And I’ve seen people come in and say, wow, you never get this level of transparency. Not to toot my own horn,
Coby: but that’s the whole point, dog.
Eric: That’s the whole point.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. The whole point is to get people on a similar page so they understand the outcomes that we’re, we’re trying to, to shoot for.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: So they can be a part of that outcome.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: So anyway, I think there’s real value in leading a values-based, life. Which is why I don’t want Big, Leap’s core values or Agency Brands core values to be just something we throw on the wall. They should guide our decisions. They should be uniquely ingrained
in every conversation that we have day to day. Yeah. In a natural way.
Coby: Right.
Eric: I often tell this story to people. I worked for a CEO that was very values- based and he’d throw it up on the wall. He’d point to it all the time in company meetings.
He’d repeat himself over and over and over.
Coby: Delight.
Eric: Yeah, similar. I mean, some of them were very much buzzwords and because of that, there was some dissonance sometimes and it, they often became a punchline. Instead of an operating system or, something that guides the judgment of a company and the people that are
within it, they became a joke.
Coby: So my personal takeaway from this, because I like to think that the lens that I try to see things through, not for me, but that to create brand.
Eric: Right.
Coby: Is really a. It’s about what you value and the behavioral economic spectrum. Like.Right.
But, but what I’m hearing is that, now that I, I listen to you talk about how, like how you frame incentive, Irecognize that there’s still at the core, like you still want something and what you want is framed by what you value.
Yeah.
So that’s the nexus, incentives and value. And that’s why they have
to support each other. Good.
Eric: Yeah. That’s a great summary. Because you can’t throw out the values. I’m not suggesting that values have no place,
Coby: –but this is what gives context to the incentive.
Eric: 100, man. Yeah, one, hundred.
Coby: I like that. Yeah.
Eric: And you have to be very deliberate about the incentives because values aren’t enough.
In order to get to the outcomes. And everybody in business and everybody
in life is desiring certain outcomes. You can be clear on the outcomes, but if the incentives aren’t clear, then you’ll get unintended, consequences.
Coby: That’s really good to know.I really like this. Thank you.
Eric: You got it, man.
Coby: Awesome. Thanks for hanging out.
Eric: Yeah.
Coby: Let’s go drink that stuff.
Coby: Okay. So what is it that you ended up getting?
Eric: It’s called a Raspberry Dream. First time I’ve tried it.
I think It’s a combination Dr. Pepper, which is an amazing drink. Coconut, it definitely
tastes the coconut. Okay. And raspberry. Raspberry puree.
Coby: Yeah. Okay. Puree even? Mine is.
Eric: I think that’s what it said on the menu.
Coby: Mine’s. Mine’s–I ordered the Fresca thingy.
Eric: There might be two Fresca things because I. That name didn’t sound
Coby: Pink Bahama. I mean, I don’t know.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Is it tasty though?
Coby: It’s good. It’s very peachy.
Eric: I bet.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Bahama just dreams peach to me.
Coby: Yeah. I mean Fresca it’s already citrusy, so it’s good. And then we have off-camera, the pretzel bites. So I think, all in all, Swig delivered.
Eric: Oh, definitely today.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Nice.
Coby: Yeah.
Eric: Thanks for taking me, man.
Coby: Yeah. It was fun.I really appreciate it. Yeah, it was. We’ll do it again.
Nicole: Thanks for coming along for the ride. If you enjoy sweet takes, be sure
to subscribe and leave us a review. Join us next time. There’s more sweetness ahead.