Money changes ??

Chapter 95

So the leadership question I was asked yesterday is “how can my worst employee, be my second best money producer?” Some exploration was needed to determine what “my worst employee” meant. In this case it meant that he was a fairly normal thoughtless selfish person, who really doesn’t want to work all that much. Like I said, normal, typical, the average. But the person asking the question values teamwork, thankfulness, thoughtfulness, and kindness, none of which he is ever gonna get out of this employee, nor does he reward such actions and values.

If you want or desire a set of actions on the part of your team, then you have to do two things fairly consistently: hire people who tend toward those actions and values to begin with, and reward those actions and values regularly. How the question was posed to me shows me what you are measuring and really valuing - producing income for the business- which is a perfectly fine value for your business. But it is not reasonable to expect your regular paychecks to turn this person into a thoughtful kind unselfish perfect employee. There in fact is no incentive for him to do so. In fact, the reason he is your second highest money producer is that he is selfish and leaves the shitty work for the rest of the guys to do.

You can’t improve a person’s character with monetary rewards. If the Bible is accurate, then more money generally corrupts one’s character more often. You have to find and use a different reward merit system.