Many managers follow the economists' teaching to claim that people are rational and will strive to maximise their financial gain. But people are irrational. There are some maxims in designing performance-related pay. First, money is not a motivator. But fair reward encourages commitment. Second, offering a financial incentive will encourage isolationist behaviour. Be careful what behaviour you reward!

Designing a sales commission policy and associated commission operating system to remunerate staff for sales performance is complex. The scheme must incentivise, and be fair to all. This blog considers some of the thinking that should go into incentive design.

The culture that exists within a firm will in the long run make or break it. This paper analyses culture. It first discusses culture as a concept. It looks at what part culture plays in our working life and how it affects the firm. It researches current thinking on culture. And finally it looks at how one might measure and where necessary change culture in a firm. The aim is to provide practicing managers with a tool: something theoretically sound and something practical.

If a manager can express the traits and abilities of candidates such that search turns up truly viable candidates; if the search itself targets just the right people; and if selection tests for exactly what's needed, then the hiring manager avoids wasting everyone’s time and avoids reducing the firm's turnover and profits. It's deterministic recruitment: getting it right first time. Here's how.

Power is important. Persuading staff to do your bidding means that you must have power over them – to order them, to make them do, particularly since they might otherwise do something else. But how that ‘ordering’ is done is all-important because social managers enjoy greater success. For some, being a social manager comes naturally. For others it can be learned. Here's how.

What should a manager to do when someone in a meeting is getting emotional – they become so angry that they disrupt the meeting? Frijda’s Laws of Emotion tell us much that will help us first understand this situation and then suggest a course of action that the meeting chair might take to recover good order. Managers can successfully deal with anger because emotions obey laws. Here are the details.