Three major tools that companies have to influence behavior are incentives, process, and culture. People often mean different things when talking about these, so I’ll provide an example of each so we’re on the same page (if you think that I should be using a different word for the concept, feel free to mentally substitute that word).
Getting people to show up to meetings on time
Incentive: dock pay for people who are late Process: don’t allow anyone who’s late into the meeting Culture: people feel strongly about showing up on time Getting people to build complex systems
Incentive: require complexity in promo criteria Process: make process for creating or executing on a work item so heavyweight that people stop doing simple work Culture: people enjoy building complex systems and/or building complex systems results in respect from peers and/or prestige Avoiding manufacturing defects
Incentive: pay people per good item created and/or dock pay for bad items Process: have QA check items before shipment and discard bad items Culture: people value excellence and try very hard to avoid defects
P.S people get more angry over a legal wrong than a violent wrong, because one is a semi-equal beating you and the other is you were conquered by a superior force.