The Deal
A Game of Life
We all know game shows work because of a simple mechanic: the prospect of winning. A big number, a bright stage, a question that could change your life. Millions watch. Thousands apply. A handful sit on that chair. And only one walks away with the prize.
The game only works if many play and very few win. That's not a flaw in the design. That is the design. The house wouldn't run the show if the math didn't work in its favor. The prospect keeps people playing. The odds keep the house profitable.
Now replace the studio with an office, the prize with a career, a promotion, the feeling that what you do matters. The mechanic stays the same. But the question that rarely gets asked out loud: "What's the deal here? What do I get for what I give?"
Every job has two deals. The first one is written down: salary, hours, vacation days, job description. Signed, explicit, clear. That one tends to work. The second deal is the one that was never negotiated. The indirect hopes, the unspoken expectations. "If I work hard enough, I'll be recognized. If I stay loyal, they'll take care of me. If I give my best, it will mean something." That deal has no contract. No terms. No signatures. And it's the one that breaks.
That second deal sits underneath almost every coaching engagement that lands on my desk. Teams that "don't function." People who "just won't engage." Organizations that have the tools, the frameworks, the processes, and still not much moves in the "right" direction. As an agile coach, my position is a strange one. I'm not in the audience and I'm not on stage. I'm the one watching the recordings, because someone asked me to figure out why the show isn't working. And what I keep seeing, underneath every framework discussion, every resistance to standups (a daily team sync, usually 15 minutes), every failed transformation, is this: the unspoken deal doesn't add up. The prospect is there. But the terms? Those were never actually negotiated.
The Deal That Costs Everything
In a team coaching engagement not long ago, the pattern became visible through one person. Not because they were a problem. Quite the opposite. They worked around the clock. Said yes to almost everything. Rarely took a day off. The deal this person had made with themselves was clear:
"Give everything, climb the ladder, and eventually it pays off."
Hard work in, career out. Sounds reasonable. But what looked like ambition had quietly turned into something else. "Work hard" had become "work without limits, at the cost of your own health." And the system around this person? It accepted the terms without question. Someone delivers more than asked, doesn't complain, doesn't cost extra. From a system perspective, that's a good deal.
From a coaching perspective, it's hard to watch. One of the core principles agile was built on is sustainable pace, the idea that teams should work at a rhythm they can maintain indefinitely, not one that burns people out by design. This person was the living opposite of that principle. And because the system rewarded it, establishing healthy boundaries for the rest of the team became almost impossible.
Sometimes management notices and points to this person: "Why can't everyone be like that?" That signals to the team that working without boundaries isthe expectation, not the exception.
In one case, a person let their manager pull them back from vacation for a single day. For a task that any other team member could have handled. "It's fine, no big deal." But it was a big deal. By accepting it, they taught the system something: this is possible. And systems remember. Once that door is open, it's open for everyone. The person who then doesn't answer on vacation, who draws a line? That person now looks difficult. The sacrifice of one quietly becomes the expectation for all.
And here's where the deal reveals its cost. If the promotion comes, it often comes because the system rewarded sacrifice, not competence.
If the promotion doesn't come? The person tends to stay anyway. Because stopping would mean admitting it was all for nothing. A sunk cost applied to an entire career. What looks like loyalty from the outside is often closer to loss aversion. According to the Atlanta Fed Wage Growth Tracker, job switchers consistently earned nearly double the annual pay increase compared to those who stayed: 10% versus 5% in 2024. The rational move would be to leave. And still, most stay.
The answer to "What do I get back?" sounds certain: a career. So I give everything. But the price is too high. And often enough, the career doesn't come.
The Deal That's Missing a Line
A friend of mine works at a large tech company. Cutting-edge tooling, sophisticated data platform, agile framework in place. On paper, everything works. In practice, his summary is shorter:
"What's the point? Those useless stand-ups, every day. Zero dependencies on my end, but everyone else needs something from me."
He's a good developer. Autonomous, skilled, capable. And not cynical. Just clear: "Give me an actual reason and I'm in. Otherwise you get the bare minimum."
I asked: "What if the company offered you shares?" His answer: "Maybe. But probably not. The company just doesn't interest me. Not intrinsically. If it were, let’s say about renewable energy, which i’m interested in, then sure. But this? No."
That's where the deal gets complicated. Even if the extrinsic terms were perfect, something is missing. He controls his work. He's good at it. But the company itself holds no meaning for him. Not the product, not the mission, not the direction. The deal never included that line.
Daniel Pink described three pillars of intrinsic motivation in his book Drive: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. My friend has two out of three. The third was never part of the deal.
And he can afford to not care. House paid off. Career established. "If it gets bad enough, I'll just leave." The deal the company offers: salary, stability, good tooling. What it doesn't offer: a reason to invest beyond what's required.
In coaching, this is where frameworks hit a wall. Better ways of working, distributing knowledge, improving collaboration. None of it lands if the person has no reason to engage. And that's not stubbornness. It's rational.
The more difficult version is the one who stays and builds power from that position. Dependencies flow toward them, knowledge sits only with them, and they become the bottleneck no one can work around. Agile, by design, distributes knowledge, distributes decision-making, distributes power. For someone whose position depends on being irreplaceable, that's not an improvement. It's a threat.
In one of my engagements, this played out in the open. The product owner wanted to introduce refinements (sessions where teams clarify upcoming work), regular retrospectives (team reflections on how to improve), a Kanban board (a visual workflow tracker). Nothing radical, really. The majority of team members responded: "Then I'll leave." And the product owner folded. Because losing those people meant losing the project (or more exact: the deadline that was promised). The unspoken deal became visible: "We work here, but on our terms. Change the terms, and we're gone." As a coach, there's not much to do except make that visible. Either the organization commits and accepts that some might leave, or it accepts the team's terms. But pretending there's a third option where everyone stays and everything changes? That's the prospect talking.
His answer to "What do I get back?" is clean: nothing that interests me beyond the paycheck.
Why the Game Still Runs
Different reactions, one pattern. The deal stays the same.
There was a time when the contract between employee and organization was simple: loyalty in exchange for security. Twenty years of service, a company pension, protection from layoffs. That deal is gone. But the expectation of loyalty hasn't moved an inch. Organizations still expect people to "act like owners" without giving them anything resembling ownership.
And the organization's own expectations? Equally unspoken. Some keep them deliberately vague: "Work hard and good things will happen." The promise floats in the room without ever becoming concrete. Others reduce it to pure mechanics: after X years, title Y, salary Z. Neither version is an actual deal. The first one can't be held accountable because it was never said. The second promotes people because time passed, not because they're ready.
Simon Sinek once described this gap in an interview. A young employee, entry-level, everything seemed fine. Good culture, decent pay, solid team. And still: "I think I'm going to quit." The reason? "I'm not making an impact." Someone who has everything on paper and still leaves. The deal was missing the one thing that mattered.
And here's what four decades of motivation research confirm: extrinsic incentives, the if-then rewards ("if you hit the target, then you get the bonus"), don't just fail to motivate in the long term. For complex, creative work, they actively reduce performance and crush creativity. The system keeps feeding extrinsic rewards and wonders why engagement doesn't follow.
What the deal actually needs is connection. To the work, to the people, to the purpose behind it. Without that, every exchange stays transactional. Time for money, effort for title. And connection can't be coached into existence. No framework installs it. No bonus produces it. It either grows or it doesn't. The most a system can do is notactivelyworkagainst the conditions where it might.
It's Still a Deal
Here's what I tell people in my teams, and it tends to land hard: we are all replaceable. Every single one of us. And me included, of course. That's not personal. It's the nature of what a company is. Your health is not worth any organization, no matter how good the mission sounds.
And yes, some companies carry genuine purpose. Renewable energy for everyone. Reducing pollution. Making healthcare accessible. That's real, and it motivates. But even those companies, including the ones subsidized by governments, need to deliver results. A vision without profit (or at least a deliverable promise) doesn't survive. That's not cynicism. That's the reality underneath the second deal.
Which means: connection matters, purpose matters, but let's not romanticize the exchange. At its core, it remains a deal. One side offers something, the other side offers something back. The question isn't whether it's transactional. It is. The question is whether both sides know what's on the table.
Deal or No Deal?
Here's the part that rarely comes up: what if the deal was never actually made? What if both sides assumed the other agreed to terms that were never negotiated?
The organization assumes: "We pay a salary, provide structure, offer career paths. That's our part."
The employee assumes: "I show up, do my work, engage when it makes sense. That's mine."
Neither side tends to say this out loud. And when it breaks, both say: "But you were supposed to..."
Some look at the odds and stop playing. Some keep playing because the prospect feels too close to walk away. Some play, win, and realize the prize wasn't what was advertised.
The game keeps running. Not because the deal is good. Because the prospect is.
Maybe the first step isn't a solution. Maybe it's a question. Not "how do we fix engagement?" Not "why don't people care?" But: what is the deal, exactly? And has anyone ever said it out loud?
Years ago, on a TV studio set, someone told me about a colleague who positions studio cameras for a living. Marks on the floor, angles, calibration. Most people do that job for a year or two on their way to becoming a camera operator. He's been doing it for over a decade. Not because he's stuck. Because he knows he's the best at it, and most people in the industry know it too. Productions book him specifically for this one thing. He separated his value from the org chart.
Refused promotion, didn't climb the corporate ladder. But autonomy over his craft, mastery that few can match, and purpose that's visible every time someone calls specifically for him. He set the price for his offered quality.
He didn't accept the system's deal. He didn't fight it either. He simply wrote his own.
Sometimes the deal that was never negotiated is the one that needs renegotiating first. Book a free consultation call: