You Are Rewarding the Wrong Behaviours

You Are Rewarding the Wrong Behaviours, First Edition. By David Rollason.

This book is written for CEOs and senior leaders who are responsible for shaping the culture of their organisation. It is not a theory book and it is not written for academic discussion. It is written for leaders who need their organisation to execute more effectively, work with greater clarity, and deliver meaningful results without constant pressure or chaos.

The central idea of this book is simple: you are always rewarding certain behaviours, whether you realise it or not. Every culture has a reward system. It is rarely formal. It is not found in policy documents or performance frameworks. It is found in what leaders notice, respond to, ignore, praise, or tolerate.

People watch what happens around them. They observe who gets promoted, who gets trusted with important work, who gets listened to, and who gets left out. They learn quickly what behaviour is valued. They then adjust their own behaviour to match. This is not manipulation. It is how humans function in groups. We learn by watching which behaviours produce progress, approval, and belonging.

The problem is that many organisations accidentally reward behaviours that work against their goals. They reward urgency instead of prioritisation. They reward individual heroes instead of teams that prevent problems. They reward being busy rather than being effective. They reward polite agreement instead of clear communication. They reward knowledge hoarding rather than shared capability. They reward compliance rather than ownership. None of these behaviours support high performance, yet they become normal because they are rewarded in subtle and continuous ways.

This book is designed to make those patterns visible. Each chapter focuses on one behaviour that is often rewarded but does not contribute to performance. The structure is consistent. First, we describe the problem plainly. Then we explain why it persists, because most cultural issues are maintained by habits that feel reasonable in the moment. We then describe the cultural shift required, so that leaders understand the behavioural expectations that need to change. Finally, we outline practical steps that leaders can apply immediately. These are not large programmes or transformation initiatives. They are small, deliberate actions that change how people think and behave at work.

The purpose of this book is not to inspire or motivate. It is to clarify. Once you see the real reward system at work inside your organisation, it becomes much easier to influence. You do not need slogans or campaigns to change culture. You simply need to reward the right behaviours consistently and remove reinforcement for the behaviours that undermine progress.

The message throughout is direct. Culture is how work gets done. Culture is not separate from execution. Culture drives execution. If results are not where you want them to be, the culture must change. And culture changes when the CEO changes what is expected, what is reinforced, and what is tolerated.