Process

How it works.

The vocabulary below defines the terms used throughout the diagnostic. The process section that follows uses those terms. Start here if anything on the site raised a question.

VOCABULARY

The terms worth knowing

These are concepts the diagnostic is built around. Understanding them before the process section makes the methodology clearer.

  • Incentive gravity is the directional pull a plan's architecture exerts on participant behavior. It operates independently of culture, leadership quality, or individual character. A well-aligned structure pulls participants toward behaviors that serve organizational strategy. A misaligned structure pulls them elsewhere, regardless of how well they are managed or how strong the culture is.

  • Every incentive structure has a stated strategic purpose, the behaviors leadership designed it to buy. Emergent purpose is different. It is the set of behaviors that actually become rational given the interactions between plan components. As plans grow and iterate, individually logical components can interact in ways that were never intended. The emergent purpose of a plan is often invisible to the people who built it precisely because they are evaluating it against their intent rather than its mechanics.

  • Behavioral outcomes in sales organizations are driven by three primary levers: participant temperament, corporate culture, and incentive structure. Temperament is addressed through hiring and firing. Culture is well served by existing leadership and consulting practices. Incentive structure is the silent lever. It operates mechanically regardless of the other two, and it is the most chronically underexamined of the three. Stidham Dynamics focuses exclusively on structure because it is the one lever that does not require human cooperation to produce outcomes.

THE ENGAGEMENT

How the diagnostic works

Operational details on what the engagement requires, how it runs, and what it produces.

  • A structural diagnostic reads the behavioral gravity embedded in your incentive architecture, the forces that make certain participant behaviors rational regardless of leadership intent or cultural context. It is not a performance review, a cultural assessment, or a redesign recommendation. It is a map of what the structure is positioned to produce.

  • Not every lever in an incentive structure drives meaningful behavior. Stidham Dynamics identifies primary drivers using two tests. First, would a self-interested participant, operating inside this system, produce meaningful behavioral output in response to this lever? Second, if this lever changed tomorrow, would it materially alter what that participant does? If the answer to both questions is yes, the lever is likely a primary driver. If either answer is no, it is incidental to the behavioral map.

  • The diagnostic requires only the documents that govern the calculation and administration of your incentive structure. This includes plan mechanics, quota setting methodology, commission schedules, accelerators, thresholds, clawback logic, and timing rules. It does not require historical commission data, P&L statements, product information, or organizational charts. If a document does not directly govern how participants are paid and under what conditions, it is not needed.

  • All company documents are destroyed following the Diagnostic Debrief. Stidham Dynamics maintains no permanent client record. The diagnostic is considered complete and final at the close of the debrief.

  • The diagnostic is designed for organizations with a functioning incentive structure where the question is what that structure is actually built to produce. It is particularly relevant when there is a gap between plan intent and participant behavior that hasn't been structurally explained, when a value creation thesis depends on management behaving in ways the current structure may not support, or when an acquisition target's performance needs to be understood independently of the narrative surrounding it.

    It is not designed for organizations building their first incentive structure from scratch.

  • The deliverable format is scoped to the engagement context. For due diligence engagements, the diagnostic is comprehensive, designed to support a clear binary decision point. For portfolio company engagements, the diagnostic is focused on the primary behavioral drivers, designed to inform actionable management decisions rather than bury operators under findings that range from material to ancillary.