The power of connected expertise

Johan Rudberg, CEO at Influence, on why shared expertise, not ownership, drives growth and new opportunities.

“The real question is whether you can get kickbacks, right? When you help someone bring in a new client or a new deal. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the daycare story, about parents picking up their kids late. If you have a problem with people being late, you introduce a fee. Say, if you’re an hour late, it costs 300 kronor.

Suddenly, a lot more people start showing up late. Because now you’ve put a price on it. Before, the social cost, the embarrassment of being late, was much higher than paying 300 kronor. And the problem isn’t just short-term. The problem is that if you try to roll it back, people remember it. So they keep showing up late, because it was “only worth” 300 kronor anyway.

That’s why it’s extremely dangerous to introduce overly explicit incentive models in a complex business like ours.

If you look at it from the client’s perspective, if they know we get a kickback for bringing in one of our colleagues, that creates a very uncomfortable feeling. It feels like we’re pushing something. And that’s exactly what this is not about.

Our profession is not about opening the door for our colleagues. It’s about opening the door for our clients, to give them access to the capability, competence, and knowledge within one of our alliance companies. And that’s something you can’t put a price on.”