Research in Brief: With a Bonus on the Line, Teams Prioritize Leadership

A great deal is known about how monetary incentives increase the performance of individual employees. But what effects do they have on the performance of teams, whose work requires coordination, discussion, and idea sharing? To answer that question, researchers studied 722 escape-room teams in Germany, comprising more than 3,300 participants, from 2015 to 2017. In an escape room, team members must work together to complete a series of puzzles and tasks in a given amount of time (in these experiments, 60 minutes). First, the researchers established that a monetary bonus did motivate teams to perform better: Those offered one for finishing in under 45 minutes were twice as likely to do so than teams that weren’t offered a bonus. Then the researchers explored how and why performance increased, by surveying participants about their motivation, their team’s dynamic, how they approached tasks, and more. The teams that earned a bonus often spoke about how crucial leadership was to good performance, the researchers found. To test the importance of leadership to team success, the researchers ran a follow-up experiment in 2018 with 281 teams (encompassing 1,273 participants). Two-thirds were nudged to select a team leader, and one third were not. The researchers found that teams who were prompted to select a leader were 38% more likely to finish than those who were not. This was true even after controlling for a host of potentially confounding factors, including the participants’ average age, experience with escape rooms, and the size of teams. “The impact of incentives goes beyond merely increasing individual effort,” the researchers write. “Rather, they appear to provide the impetus for teams to…adopt more structured forms of leadership.” More Resources: Research: When Bonuses Backfire The Bonus Employees Really Want, Even If They Don’t Know It Yet Reward Your Employees—Without Breaking the Bank This research write-up is adapted from the September-October 2025 issue of our magazine.

Research in Brief: With a Bonus on the Line, Teams Prioritize Leadership

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