Company-First Alignment Test
Approve decisions only when personal incentives and company success point the same way.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 95%
Lam describes a simple alignment test used with his brothers: ask what is good for Wahoo's and how a proposed action helps it. Then examine whether any participant's personal benefit is aligned with the company's success. If someone can improve their own position while disregarding or damaging the company, something will eventually give, and Lam warns that it is usually the company. The mechanism makes incentives visible before approval rather than relying only on loyalty or family ties. A well-aligned arrangement allows everyone to succeed when the company succeeds. A misaligned one rewards an individual independently of the common outcome. The test is a decision rule, not a claim that personal benefit is wrong; it asks whether that benefit points in the same direction as organizational health.
Origin
Extracted from Coffeez for Closers
Core principles
- 01Ask what is good for the company before calculating personal benefit
- 02Shared success is safer than private gain at company expense
- 03Misaligned incentives eventually force either the company or the individual to give
- 04Trusted relationships still need a common decision rule
How to run it
- 1
Name the company outcome
Define how the decision should strengthen the company before discussing individual rewards.
Pro tip Use a direct question such as, 'How is this helping us?'
Watch out A vague company benefit makes a conflict of interest easier to hide.
- 2
Expose personal incentives
Identify who gains personally, how they gain, and whether that gain depends on company success.
Watch out Do not assume friendship or family membership automatically aligns incentives.
- 3
Compare directions
Check whether the personal and company outcomes improve together or whether one can rise while the other falls.
Watch out An incentive that pays despite company harm is structurally misaligned.
- 4
Redesign the arrangement
Change responsibilities, rewards, or terms until personal benefit depends on creating the agreed company result.
Pro tip Prefer shared upside over isolated extraction.
- 5
Recheck during execution
Watch whether actual behavior continues to serve the company-first outcome as conditions change.
Watch out Initial alignment can erode if rewards or pressures change.
In the wild
Lam says his siblings' interest is the company's success: if Wahoo's succeeds, they all succeed. He contrasts that with a person who improves their own position while not caring what happens to the company.
→ The shared company-first rule gives the team a common basis for judging decisions.
Common mistakes
Confusing loyalty with alignment
Long relationships can support trust, but the test still asks whether each person's incentives track company success.
Treating all personal gain as bad
Lam's positive model is mutual success: the company succeeds and everyone succeeds with it.
Checking only the stated intention
The relevant question is what the incentive rewards in practice, especially when personal and company outcomes diverge.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founder teams, family businesses, partnerships, and executive groups making decisions with uneven personal rewards.
Not ideal for
Situations where 'company first' is used to excuse unfair treatment, conceal conflicts, or deny legitimate employee needs.
From the transcript
“we always say what is good for waho and how is this helping us”
“if the alignment of their pocket is not in the same alignment as the company something is going to give”
“if the company succeeds we all succeed”
From the episode
Wahoo's Fish Tacos Wing Lam