As leaders, your responsibility is to bring out the best in your teams and keep them highly motivated and productive. I strongly suggest you watch this video https://youtu.be/GObwJu2aAWY and review the session summary below. The core principle to remember is simple: define the exact business goals you want to achieve, and then reward the specific behaviors and performance patterns that drive those results.

A properly designed incentive system increases our overall profits rather than simply adding to our costs. While a base salary compensates employees for their presence, incentives specifically reward performance and outcomes. We must quantify these outcomes clearly and avoid incentivizing substandard behavior out of fear, as that only reinforces poor habits.

To create the most effective incentive structures, please keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Keep the incentive formula simple and completely transparent so every beneficiary understands how to succeed.

• Tie rewards to a complete performance matrix, such as requiring full completion, collections, and closing for sales roles.

• Target specific behaviors and key performance indicators (KPIs) tailored to different business lines.

• Implement a tiered slab system, setting the first slab at a 10-20% stretch and increasing rewards for higher tiers to drive continuous ambition.

• Balance the rewards between group and individual efforts, ideally using a 30% team lead and 70% individual split.

• Review performance weekly or monthly and disburse payouts quickly, as fast rewards strongly reinforce positive behavior.

• Discuss and announce incentive achievements jointly in group settings to keep the scheme top of mind.

• Ensure targets are commercially viable and mutually beneficial, using internal costs and benchmarks to set achievable but meaningful values.

• Redesign the incentive structure periodically to prevent fatigue and keep the team actively engaged.

Beyond financial compensation, remember that non-monetary recognition plays a crucial role in team retention. Consider incorporating specific titles, team outings, mementos, learning sponsorships, and awards like recognizing timely attendance. People may work for money, but they stay where they feel genuinely appreciated.

Please review these points and identify the specific behaviors you want to build within your respective teams. Let us plan to discuss how we can design and implement these targeted incentive plans soon.

Finding Bottlenecks Slowing Your Business

Notes from Arun Thapar's coaching session (24 Sep 2026) · [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY2Wx_Sc6mg)

The method at a glance

The speaker says about 80% of business owners slip at the "ask why" step: they act on the surface symptom.

1. The five warning signs

What "piling up" looks like

Y-axis: pending quotations (count). Example quoted in the session.

2. Tool one: write the process from start to end

No software needed. Write each step of one process, then look at the numbers or capacity at each step to see where the flow stops.

Y-axis: number of clients at each stage. Figures from the session.

8 clients paid, so 8 campaigns should launch. Only 5 did. Ask: why are 3 paying customers waiting? The problem sits after payment, not in sales.

Likely causes to check: onboarding information is incomplete; only one campaign manager, who is overloaded; slow creative approval from the client; the process is unclear or not written, so a new person doesn't know the next step.

Y-axis: capacity in units per day. The audio says "100" for quality, but the session's answer (machining) only works if quality is about 1,000.

The line can never produce more than 700 a day, however fast the other stages are. Don't blame assembly, quality or packing; upgrade machining.

3. Tool two: symptom vs root cause (the "5 Whys")

Finding the stuck department is only the symptom. Hiring another approver because approvals are slow treats the symptom. The approver may not be overloaded at all; they may be batching work, unclear on deadlines, or waiting on the owner. Keep asking "why" before you act.

Business example: late delivery

Fix: Whatever is committed to a customer goes to operations at once, or sales confirms the date with operations before promising it. (In the story, sales promised 1 October on the 24th but told operations on the 29th.)

Story: the million-dollar cleaning contract

Fix: Change the direction of the lights instead of paying for cleaning.

The speaker tells it about the Statue of Liberty; the well-known version of this story is about the Jefferson Memorial. The lesson is the same.

4. Measure the bottleneck

"My team is overloaded" is not a measurement. Overloaded compared to what? Use numbers.

Y-axis: service requests per week. Example from the session: a gap of 20 requests every week.

5. Fix it: five levers, in this order

6. Watch out: fixing one step can create the next bottleneck

Y-axis: quotations per week. Example from the session.

One department's output is the next department's input (marketing → sales → operations). Speeding up quotations only grows the pile at approval. Before and after any fix, check that the next stage has the capacity. Improve the flow of the whole process, not one department.

Summary

Before hiring, ask whether the problem is capacity, process, waiting, rework, decision making or a poor handover. Extra staff on a broken process only adds cost and frustration. A car can only do 120 on a clear road, not a bumpy one. Shift the question from "Are my people working?" to "Why is my business slowing?"

Homework: fix one bottleneck before the next session

Don't attempt many at once. Fill this in; it saves automatically.

Process name

Where is work getting stuck?

Process steps

Why is it happening? (5 Whys)

How much work is waiting?

What action will you take?

Who owns the action?

By when?

Q&A highlights

First prove approval really is the bottleneck by asking the approver why things are delayed. Then frame it as "we are not removing your authority, we are defining where it is actually needed." Fix the process issue first; a person issue can be handled after. If needed, give them an assistant rather than take work away. The business has to flow.

Advanced Red Bar Candles

Finding Bottlenecks Slowing Your Business

Notes from Arun Thapar's coaching session (24 Sep 2026) · [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY2Wx_Sc6mg)

The method at a glance

The speaker says about 80% of business owners slip at the "ask why" step: they act on the surface symptom.

1. The five warning signs

What "piling up" looks like

Y-axis: pending quotations (count). Example quoted in the session.

2. Tool one: write the process from start to end

No software needed. Write each step of one process, then look at the numbers or capacity at each step to see where the flow stops.

Y-axis: number of clients at each stage. Figures from the session.

8 clients paid, so 8 campaigns should launch. Only 5 did. Ask: why are 3 paying customers waiting? The problem sits after payment, not in sales.

Likely causes to check: onboarding information is incomplete; only one campaign manager, who is overloaded; slow creative approval from the client; the process is unclear or not written, so a new person doesn't know the next step.

Y-axis: capacity in units per day. The audio says "100" for quality, but the session's answer (machining) only works if quality is about 1,000.

The line can never produce more than 700 a day, however fast the other stages are. Don't blame assembly, quality or packing; upgrade machining.

3. Tool two: symptom vs root cause (the "5 Whys")

Finding the stuck department is only the symptom. Hiring another approver because approvals are slow treats the symptom. The approver may not be overloaded at all; they may be batching work, unclear on deadlines, or waiting on the owner. Keep asking "why" before you act.

Business example: late delivery

Fix: Whatever is committed to a customer goes to operations at once, or sales confirms the date with operations before promising it. (In the story, sales promised 1 October on the 24th but told operations on the 29th.)

Story: the million-dollar cleaning contract

Fix: Change the direction of the lights instead of paying for cleaning.

The speaker tells it about the Statue of Liberty; the well-known version of this story is about the Jefferson Memorial. The lesson is the same.

4. Measure the bottleneck

"My team is overloaded" is not a measurement. Overloaded compared to what? Use numbers.

Y-axis: service requests per week. Example from the session: a gap of 20 requests every week.

5. Fix it: five levers, in this order

6. Watch out: fixing one step can create the next bottleneck

Y-axis: quotations per week. Example from the session.

One department's output is the next department's input (marketing → sales → operations). Speeding up quotations only grows the pile at approval. Before and after any fix, check that the next stage has the capacity. Improve the flow of the whole process, not one department.

Summary

Before hiring, ask whether the problem is capacity, process, waiting, rework, decision making or a poor handover. Extra staff on a broken process only adds cost and frustration. A car can only do 120 on a clear road, not a bumpy one. Shift the question from "Are my people working?" to "Why is my business slowing?"

Homework: fix one bottleneck before the next session

Don't attempt many at once. Fill this in; it saves automatically.

Process name

Where is work getting stuck?

Process steps

Why is it happening? (5 Whys)

How much work is waiting?

What action will you take?

Who owns the action?

By when?

Q&A highlights

First prove approval really is the bottleneck by asking the approver why things are delayed. Then frame it as "we are not removing your authority, we are defining where it is actually needed." Fix the process issue first; a person issue can be handled after. If needed, give them an assistant rather than take work away. The business has to flow.

As leaders, your responsibility is to bring out the best in your teams and keep them highly motivated and productive. I strongly suggest you watch this video https://youtu.be/GObwJu2aAWY and review the session summary below. The core principle to remember is simple: define the exact business goals you want to achieve, and then reward the specific behaviors and performance patterns that drive those results.

A properly designed incentive system increases our overall profits rather than simply adding to our costs. While a base salary compensates employees for their presence, incentives specifically reward performance and outcomes. We must quantify these outcomes clearly and avoid incentivizing substandard behavior out of fear, as that only reinforces poor habits.

To create the most effective incentive structures, please keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Keep the incentive formula simple and completely transparent so every beneficiary understands how to succeed.

• Tie rewards to a complete performance matrix, such as requiring full completion, collections, and closing for sales roles.

• Target specific behaviors and key performance indicators (KPIs) tailored to different business lines.

• Implement a tiered slab system, setting the first slab at a 10-20% stretch and increasing rewards for higher tiers to drive continuous ambition.

• Balance the rewards between group and individual efforts, ideally using a 30% team lead and 70% individual split.

• Review performance weekly or monthly and disburse payouts quickly, as fast rewards strongly reinforce positive behavior.

• Discuss and announce incentive achievements jointly in group settings to keep the scheme top of mind.

• Ensure targets are commercially viable and mutually beneficial, using internal costs and benchmarks to set achievable but meaningful values.

• Redesign the incentive structure periodically to prevent fatigue and keep the team actively engaged.

Beyond financial compensation, remember that non-monetary recognition plays a crucial role in team retention. Consider incorporating specific titles, team outings, mementos, learning sponsorships, and awards like recognizing timely attendance. People may work for money, but they stay where they feel genuinely appreciated.

Please review these points and identify the specific behaviors you want to build within your respective teams. Let us plan to discuss how we can design and implement these targeted incentive plans soon.