You don't get what you want. You get what you incentivise.

I want to start with a confession.

In 2017 I stood on a stage like that one, at the Almond Board's R&D forum. I'd spent years trying to help farmers spray less, use less diesel and spend less time. Some of you were there. Some of you paid me. Some of you looked after me when you didn't have to. Thank you for your support of Adaptiv.

The work was good. It helped people. But few reaped the reward.

By 2018 I'd come to terms with how badly I'd misunderstood the incentives, and I began winding down. Then I spent seven great years at E.E. Muir & Sons, as part of their push to innovate.

So, one simple idea. Incentives drive innovation.

Shouldn't all new things just make all things better?

No.

History is a stepping stone. Technology has been, and will stay, the future. Change is inevitable. What will you do about it?

It's always been this way

Let's start a long way from almonds, a long time ago. Every factory ran off one huge steam engine. One engine, with belts running to every machine in the building. Then the electric motor came along, and people did the sensible thing. They pulled out the steam engine, put in one big electric motor, and changed nothing else.

For about forty years, they got almost no productivity gains.

The money only came when someone applied the technology differently. A small motor on every machine. The whole floor laid out around the job. Same technology. Different way of working.

Here's another one. FedEx, early days. Every parcel lands in one place at night, gets sorted, and flies out by morning. The night shift was always late. They tried everything. Then someone noticed the night shift was paid by the hour. The slower the night, the bigger the pay.

So they paid by the shift instead. Finish the job. Go home. No new machine.

Charlie Munger loved that story. The line people quote him on: "Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome." Show me how you work, and I'll tell you what you'll get.

In 1975 a professor wrote a paper about this, called "On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B." Paying for one thing, and hoping for another. That was fifty years ago. So... how are we going?

Try it

Hope isn't a strategy. You don't get what you want. You get what you incentivise.

Everyone nods at that. But almost nobody can say what they actually incentivise. So let's try. I'll go first.

We pay the spray contractor for hectares. Yet, we should pay for the target covered.

We pay the rep on the cost of the drum. Yet, we should pay for the crop protected.

We pay the mechanic by the hour. Yet, we should pay for a harvester that doesn't break down in February.

We pay ourselves in tonnes this season. Yet, we should pay for a tree that's still earning in twenty years.

We pay the staff to fill in the safety form. Yet, we should pay for the thing the form was for, safety.

And the one person who holds the whole place together? We pay them in thanks and a carton at Christmas. Yet, we should pay for them to take a holiday.

Now it's your turn. One thing your business pays for, and the thing you should be paying for. Take your time. I'll wait.

That gap you're looking at right now? That's where you start.

A hundred right decisions

This is normal. Every single one made sense when we started it. You can count hectares from the ute. You can't count a protected nut from the ute.

But add them all up, across a whole industry, and we end up paying for one thing... hoping for another. Nobody chose that. There's no bad guy here. Everyone's just right about their own bit.

A hundred right decisions. One wrong result.

And it hurts most in a squeeze.

Proof from our own orchards

I've seen this up close. When we spray almonds, less than one percent of the spray lands where the worm gets into the nut. One percent. The other ninety-nine goes somewhere else.

At Adaptiv, I asked growers and spray contractors to do one simple thing. Check the spray coverage on every job. Not to shame anyone. Just so the people doing the work could see it.

The first thing I found? One contractor was getting fifty percent coverage. Five kilometres down the road, same machine, same chemical, his neighbour was getting ten. Same gear. Different result. And nobody knew.

Once they could see it, things changed. Growers started asking, "Why am I paying the same for a worse job?" The contractors slowed down. Changed nozzles. Fixed their settings. Nobody made them. Nobody likes being the one doing it badly.

Over the years, my growers saved about two hundred dollars an acre. Every year. The technology was there the whole time. What changed was what people could see. And then, what got rewarded.

So you might ask, "$200 an acre is no joke. If it worked that well, Matt, how did you fail?"

Because the contractor was still paid by the hectare. The rep was still paid on the drum. I asked everyone to change, without understanding the incentives underneath.

I installed the motor. But the factory didn't really change.

Where the money is

So where are the incentives in your business? Probably where nobody's looking.

A few that might strike a chord. The quote that takes four days. The order that goes out wrong. Twice. The invoice that sits for three weeks, because the paperwork is still in the ute.

Four in ten small businesses lose more than six hours a week to red tape. Six in ten small business owners give up their own time to keep on top of the books. Nights. Weekends.

It's in how the work gets done... or not done.

How to get it

So how do you innovate? Incentivise it. Four steps, in this order.

One. See it. Show people what their work really does. The person on the sprayer. The mechanic. Whoever's doing the books at nine at night.

Two. Reward it. Some of you already do. Do you pay anyone a bonus for a job well done? Not just done.

Three. Free your people to do their best work. A lot of us run on the smell of an oily rag, held together with baling wire... and one or two legendary human beings.

Four. Hand off the jobs that drain you and your people. Work out what matters in your business. Then incentivise your people to do it. That's what we do at Amplifiable with Morrow.

The challenge

It's not for everyone. It's for the few who love to win. Small. Simple. With a deadline.

Pick one thing you pay for. Understand the incentive. Hand off one draining job. Before December.

And start tonight. Write your pair down. What you pay for, and what you should pay for. Show the person next to you. Then send it to me. I'll read every one.

Nobody reading this is doing a bad job. We're all trying our best. Sensible is how we got here.

And there's a lot of money, and a lot of good outcomes, still sitting in your business.

Go and have dinner with it.

Sources: red tape, ACCI 2025. Owners' own time on the books, AMP 2026.