I believe that they are disconnected because its teamwork vs. individual but I believe they are connected in a strange way.‘individual effort’, ‘making the numbers’, and ‘agreeing with the boss leads to ‘teamwork’, ‘achieving challenging stretch goals’, and overall ‘candor’. When the company or teamwork wins, the individual wins. When the company or teamwork loses, the individual loses. The lose will look like lost benefits, people being fired, etc. Its that individual work that makes the team win. Even if it doesn’t feel like “teamwork” is being rewarded at a company, it really is if the company is still in business because if there was no teamwork and no one was working together, no one would have a job. The reward of teamwork is a job and working at a company that is staying in business. As far as ‘agreeing with the boss’ I really believe there is a way to ‘agree’ with the boss and suggest something completely different. It looks like this, “That’s a great idea! May I add on to that? Instead of -insert there idea- maybe we could do -insert your idea and provide back up for it-.” There will come a time when you work for someone who knows nothing about what they are talking about (its common in management). Do not insult these people or display their ignorance (what kind of a jerk does that anyway?). They know they don’t know what they are talking about and their ego will ensure you don’t get that raise or something. If you show some finesse you can easily show your smarts as well as not piss them off.