The CEO or head of Sales asks for something that you know CAN be done, but you are not sure YOU can do it. Sometimes we take a deep breath and drop in, trusting on our training and instinct. When we can’t do that, it’s time to ask for help.

IPO markets often work in much the same way. When markets are truly hot everyone is waiting for the perfect time to go public. After a while, it seems like everyone is going public at the same time. Values soar. This usually results in fantastic headlines, but many of these companies struggle to become “core” components that will survive the transformation of the market.

hat raise doesn’t mean what you think it means! Employees keep hearing how great our economy is performing. Jobless rates are at near all-time lows. Talent acquisition professionals are wailing about the availability of great talent. While all of this is happening, we are once again seeing predictions that annual merit budgets will be around 3%.

Merit: the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward; Synonyms: excellence, goodness, standard, quality, level, grade, high quality, caliber, worth, good

…and the similar sounding, but far different,

We love our employees. We all have a statement somewhere claiming they are our greatest asset. We pay people just to attract other people. We study and design programs to keep them motivated. We plan years ahead just to retain them. And we are constantly on the prowl to find new and better ways to engage them. A new study, from Dan Ariely, of “Predictably Irrational” fame suggests that very short-term cash incentives may not be doing what we think they are doing. They may be doing the opposite.

Many of us spent time a few years back watching the news about a man in Southern California who was wanted on suspicion of murder, including the killing of at least one police officer. Horrified and fascinated, those of us in, or near, Los Angeles were aware of what this man looked liked. And most of us wouldn’t have hesitated to contact the police if we had even glimpsed this guy’s shadow. So, what does this have to do with compensation?

Could it be that we are designing and communicating incentives for our highest performance all wrong? A recent study titled “Reappraisal of incentives ameliorates choking under pressure and is correlated with changes in the neural representations of incentives” appears to show that the fear of losing a reward allows people to perform at the edge better than the desire for earning more award. This study specifically looked at the impact of incentives on motor and neurological performance in high-pressure situations. While this may not apply to an average broad-based plan, it seems to have possible application in the high-stakes game of executive compensation.

So often we see companies whose executives are paid handsomely only to falter shortly after. How does this happen? Goals were apparently met. Success seemed to have been achieved. But the final result of the goals and success is a large payout followed by a sharp corporate collapse. Are we doing something wrong when we incentivize our executives?