Harvard Business School

Brian J. Hall

Brian J. Hall

Albert H. Gordon Professor of Business Administration

Albert H. Gordon Professor of Business Administration

Incentives, performance management, organizational strategy and value creation.

Incentives, performance management, organizational strategy and value creation.

The question at the center of the work

How do leaders turn a shared strategy into decisions and behavior that create value for the enterprise?

How do leaders turn a shared strategy into decisions and behavior that create value for the enterprise?

Hall’s work examines the incentives, measures and management practices that influence what people actually do. It helps leaders understand why capable people can pursue sensible local objectives while making it harder for the business to succeed as a whole.

Hall’s work examines the incentives, measures and management practices that influence what people actually do. It helps leaders understand why capable people can pursue sensible local objectives while making it harder for the business to succeed as a whole.

The research

The research

Hall connects incentives, performance measures, value creation and governance to show how organizational systems shape the choices people make.

Motivation and incentives

How financial and non-financial rewards direct attention, effort and risk-taking.

Performance management

How measures, reviews and accountability affect the choices people make.

Value creation and value claiming

Why enterprise value grows when leaders cooperate across boundaries rather than protect their own share.

Executive compensation and governance

How pay design connects leadership decisions, company performance and risk.

Four ideas to carry into the work

Four ideas to carry into the work

Business is a team sport.

Value creation depends on people making choices that benefit the enterprise, including when those choices do not maximize their own position.

Incentives send stronger signals than statements.

Measures, rewards and promotion criteria tell people what the organization values in practice.

Local success can undermine enterprise performance.

A system can reward every unit for meeting its targets while the company fails to deliver the strategy.

A management system must resolve competing claims.

Leaders need shared facts, enterprise reviews and explicit forums for making trade-offs across units.

A guided reading path

A guided reading path

These selections provide a route into the work, with a short note on the question or argument each publication helps a reader examine.

These selections provide a route into the work, with a short note on the question or argument each publication helps a reader examine.

View the complete faculty publication record

View the complete faculty publication record

Start here

Become a Value Creator

HBS Working Knowledge · 2014

An accessible account of value creation, cooperation and the habits that distinguish enterprise leaders from value claimers.

Incentive design

Money Isn’t Everything

HBS Working Knowledge · 2023

Four research-based principles for designing incentives—and the predictable errors that weaken motivation.

Executive pay

Paid for Success

HBS Working Knowledge

A clear introduction to pay-for-performance, equity incentives and the unintended effects of plan design.

Research

Are CEOs Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?

Quarterly Journal of Economics

Evidence on the relationship between executive wealth and company performance.

Research

The Trouble with Stock Options

Journal of Economic Perspectives

Why a common incentive instrument can become costly, fragile and misaligned with the behavior a company needs.

Practice

Designing Incentive Plans

HBS Motivation and Incentives research program

A practical bridge between economic incentives, behavioral evidence and the realities of organizations.

HBS case

Recruiting Andrew Yard

Harvard Business School case

A negotiation case that exposes how monetary incentives interact with trust, interpretation and the employment relationship.

Research record

Executive compensation, incentives and organizational strategy

Harvard Business School

The complete record connects Hall’s academic research with his work as an executive and adviser.

Complete Harvard Business Review record

The guided selections above are a place to begin. The verified record below brings together Brian Hall’s Harvard Business Review articles.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

2000 · July–August

2000 · July–August

What You Need to Know About Stock Options: A Reply to Comments

Brian J. Hall

2000 · March–April

2000 · March–April

What You Need to Know About Stock Options

Brian J. Hall

Questions this work helps a leadership team examine

Questions this work helps a leadership team examine

What value is the strategy intended to create, and for whom?

Which decisions require leaders to act for the enterprise rather than their own unit?

What behavior do current measures, reviews and rewards encourage?

Where are people being asked to collaborate while the system rewards protection of local interests?

Which management forums will surface trade-offs and hold leaders jointly accountable?

How the research connects to Change Logic

How the research connects to Change Logic

Change Logic uses this work to connect strategy with the management system that leaders experience every day. The Congruence Model tests whether incentives, responsibilities, skills and culture support the critical work. The Management System creates the reviews, measures and decision forums through which the leadership team holds the organization together.

Change Logic uses this work to connect strategy with the management system that leaders experience every day. The Congruence Model tests whether incentives, responsibilities, skills and culture support the critical work. The Management System creates the reviews, measures and decision forums through which the leadership team holds the organization together.

Management System

Congruence Model

Strategy Manifesto