People can read their manager's mind

People generally don't do what they're told, but what they expect to be rewarded for. Managers often say they'll reward something – perhaps they even believe it. But then they proceed to reward different things.

I think people are fairly good at predicting this discrepancy. The more productive they are, the better they tend to be at predicting it. Consequently, management's stated goals will tend to go unfulfilled whenever deep down, management doesn't value the sort of work that goes into achieving these goals.

So not only is paying lip service to these goals worthless, but so is lying to oneself and genuinely convincing oneself. When time comes to reward people, it is the gut feeling of whose work is truly remarkable that matters. And what you usually convince yourself of is that the goal is important – but not that achieving it is remarkable. In fact, often someone pursuing what you think are unimportant goals in a way that you admire will impress you more than someone doing "important grunt work" (in your eyes.)

You then live happily with this compartmentalization – an important goal to be achieved by unremarkable people. However, nobody is fooled except you. The people whose compensation depends on your opinion have ample time to remember and analyze your past words and decisions – more time than you, in fact, and a stronger incentive. And so their mental model of you is often much better than your own. So they ignore your requests and become valued, instead of following them and sinking into obscurity.

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