Codie SanchezFounder @ Contrarian Thinking

Hiring is one of the most important things an owner can do.

20 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief segment, Codie Sanchez critiques the common practice of motivating staff through lofty vision statements, arguing that such abstract goals often leave employees confused about their personal relevance. She advocates for a concrete, incentive‑driven approach: define clear, measurable performance targets—such as on‑time delivery, high Net Promoter Score (NPS), staying on budget, or closing sales—and tie employee bonuses directly to those outcomes. By aligning compensation with results, every team member behaves like an owner, focusing on actions that drive the business forward rather than being motivated by vague inspiration.

Chapters

How do you inspire your employees to think and solve problems like you would?
Most people try to get the vision out to everyone and believe that the team will see the same vision and get excited. How many times have you sat as an employee and listened to an owner go, we're gonna build a billion-dollar business? Your thought as an employee is what? What the fuck does that mean for me? I don't own this place. That just sounds like more work, right? So your job instead might be to say things that we say now. We're gonna build a billion-dollar business. What does that mean for you? If our jobs hit the construction site and they're on-time delivery and we execute according to a high NPS score with our customers and we're on budget, everybody on your team gets a bonus. Why do we always know if salespeople are winning? Because it's like, did you close this? Then you make Y. If you want to make a business where every employee works really hard, have an incentive to work hard. Forget about inspiration, obsess on incentive alignment.