Culture & Vision: A Facade In The Absence Of Tangible Upside

Keeping Your Team Motivated for the Long Haul

Culture and vision are the twin pillars that support any thriving organization. While building a strong culture is crucial, it is merely a facade without a compelling vision for the future. A vibrant culture can foster camaraderie and make daily work enjoyable, but without a clear vision of where the organization is headed, that same culture can quickly become hollow. Employees may bond with their teammates, but without an understanding of the larger purpose behind their work, they are likely to disengage. However, even a strong culture paired with a compelling vision isn't enough on its own. Employees need more than just ideals to keep them motivated; they need tangible rewards that provide them with a personal stake in the success of the organization.

The Culture-Vision Nexus: Why Loyalty is Fading

It’s not uncommon to hear complaints that employees today are less loyal than they used to be. When I encounter this sentiment, I always ask, "Why do you think that is?" The reality is that the traditional pillars of employee loyalty—pensions, robust healthcare benefits, and clear career advancement paths—are crumbling. Many organizations have replaced meaningful, long-term rewards with superficial perks like pizza parties and unlimited PTO while simultaneously implementing random layoffs to increase shareholder value. In such an environment, I ask, why would anyone in their right mind be loyal? If the answer is “a paycheck”, guess what? That person is officially operating in complacency mode.

Contrast this with the startup world, where despite the inherent risks, employee loyalty often runs very deep. Why? Because in a startup, employees typically have equity—a tangible stake in the company's success. This equity serves as a powerful motivator, a carrot that keeps them engaged through the challenges of early-stage growth. But beyond the financial incentive, there’s something even more potent: a shared vision. At a startup, everyone is connected by the collective goal of building something from the ground up. The team rows in the same direction, driven by a common desire to reach the gold at the end of the rainbow. This shared vision naturally creates a strong, positive culture because everyone is working towards the same future.

The Corporate Conundrum: Vision, Culture, and the Need for Tangible Rewards

In many corporate environments, employees are increasingly becoming aware that they are cogs in the machine. This is a sad reality and one that doesn’t have to be the case. The lack of a compelling vision, combined with a disposable employee mentality, leads to burnout and disengagement. Employees are told, "If you don’t like it here, go somewhere else." This attitude is not only demoralizing but also counterproductive, as it erodes any semblance of loyalty or long-term commitment.

Leadership experts have long emphasized the importance of vision in creating and sustaining organizational culture. John P. Kotter, a renowned authority on leadership and change, argues that "vision is a picture of the future with some implicit or explicit commentary on why people should strive to create that future." Without a compelling vision, Kotter explains, it is difficult to align and motivate a workforce because employees need to see the bigger picture to understand their role within it.

But here’s the catch: Vision and culture, while critical, aren’t always enough. Employees also need tangible rewards—something they can see, hold, or bank on. In the absence of pensions and other traditional incentives, employees are increasingly seeking out organizations that offer them not just a sense of purpose but also a tangible means to improve their financial security and personal well-being.

This is where long-term incentives (LTIs) come into play.

The Tangible Rewards: Long-Term Incentives as the Bridge

While a strong culture and clearly defined vision are foundational, they are not enough on their own. In our capitalistic society, cash still talks, but it’s not just about short-term gains. It’s about giving your team something significant to work towards over the long haul. We’re human, after all, and we work in stressful environments. Motivation naturally ebbs and flows, but when a long-term incentive (LTI) is in place, employees are more likely to snap out of a slump and refocus on the bigger picture.

An LTI is a compensation strategy designed to retain and motivate employees by providing them with financial rewards or benefits tied to the achievement of specific, long-term organizational goals. These incentives are structured to encourage employees to stay with the company and contribute to its sustained success over a multi-year period.

Daniel Pink, an expert on motivation and author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, emphasizes that autonomy, mastery, and purpose are key drivers of motivation. Long-term incentives can be powerful tools to enhance these drivers by aligning individual goals with the broader organizational vision. When employees see how their long-term efforts contribute to the company’s success, they are more likely to feel a sense of purpose and ownership in their work.

In practice, long-term incentives can take various forms, from stock options and profit-sharing plans but in most cases, performance-based bonuses. The key is to align these incentives with the company’s long-term goals and vision. For example, if a company’s vision is to decrease production time by X or develop a new and groundbreaking solution, offering LTIs tied to achieving specific targets can motivate employees to contribute to that vision. Remember that meeting revenue and profit targets are not motivating factors for most of the people in your organization. Simply put, if someone in the organization doesn’t have the ability to directly impact either metric, then what will they be motivated by?

Here are a few examples of how you can think about team specific LTIs:

• Sales - Increased funnel speed, decreased time to close

• Project Management - Reduction in time to onboard

• Customer Service - Decrease in ticket resolution time

• Marketing - Increase in inbound lead flow

• Business Development - Growth of outbound marketing qualified leads

Crafting a Vision-Driven LTI Strategy: Ensuring Long-Term Engagement

So, how do you implement an effective LTI strategy? It all starts with a clear vision. As leaders, you need to strategically identify what the three-year vision for your company looks like. What are the clearly defined goals that will lead your organization to success? Once you have a concrete vision, you can design an LTI plan that aligns with these goals, ensuring that your employees are not only motivated by their day-to-day work but also by the promise of a rewarding future.

This approach requires a leader who is a true catalyst for organizational change management—someone who puts the team first and understands that a strong culture must be predicated on a shared vision of the future. Without this, it’s difficult to retain the best employees and build a company that thrives in the long term.

The Symbiotic Relationship Between Culture, Vision, and Long-Term Incentives

Culture and vision are not mutually exclusive; they are deeply interconnected. A strong culture provides the foundation for daily work, while a compelling vision offers the hope and direction necessary for long-term success. But even with these in place, without a long-term incentive to keep employees focused on the future, motivation can wane, morale can dip, and stress can mount. This makes employees more susceptible to exploring new opportunities where they perceive a better alignment between their efforts and their rewards. This alignment of culture with vision is what sets apart great organizations from the rest. By focusing on both—and supporting them with long-term incentives—leaders can foster environments where employees are not only happy to be at work but are also driven by a clear sense of purpose and direction.

Final Thoughts: Leading with Vision, Culture, and Tangible Rewards

The takeaway should be clear:

A strong culture is vital, but it must be built on the foundation of a compelling vision and sustained through tangible, long-term incentives. Without vision, culture becomes a hollow shell, unable to inspire or sustain long-term employee engagement. But without tangible rewards, even the most motivated and vision-aligned employees can lose their drive.

Leaders who understand this symbiotic relationship and leverage tools like long-term incentives will be better equipped to build organizations that are not only successful but also deeply fulfilling places to work. It’s time to move beyond superficial perks and foster environments where employees are genuinely invested in the company's future—a future they can clearly see, tangibly benefit from, and are excited to be a part of.