Okay, what do we know? Well, everybody's not going to behave the
right way. Destructive behaviors cannot be
overlooked. Employees must trust the system, if they
work hard and play by the rules, they win. Don't change the rules in the middle of
the game. How many times have you heard a story
about a company, and it usually happens with salespeople, that all of a sudden
they change how they compensate their salespeople because one salesperson is
making too much money? Excuse me?
Why is that person making so much money? Because he's selling so much stuff!
What do you want him to do? Sell stuff!
It's amazing. There is one entrepreneur that built the
multibillion dollar company because he was the number one sales person at another
public company. And they based it because he was making so
much money, split his territory, which means reduced his comp, he quit and went
and formed a company and built a multibillion dollar company.
I mean, craziness! You're saying, well should the sales
person be making more money than the CEO? Maybe.
Is there something inherently wrong with that?
No, not especially if you're the owner of the company.
One set of behavior rules, not different rules for employees and different rules
for leaders. Wrong messages ladies and gentlemen when
that happens. You know, where you park you car, where
you eat lunch. Okay?
Even the type of car you drive to work. Everybody's trying to look and see, does
Jim think he's better than me? Does Jane think she's better than me?
Remember, you want the same things they want.
The more you can devalue elitism. It is so interesting in the, remember the
list of those high performance companies I gave you.
It's amazing how many of those companies have no corporate jets, no executive
dining room. Amazing how many of those companies the
CEOs have the same size office, as other people.
One of those companies, the CEO has a windowless office big enough for a table
desk and three chairs, period. I used to say when I was doing my research
on companies, public companies, that, you walk into a CEO's office, if you have to
go through 2, 3 administrative assistants, short that stock.
If you go into a CEO's office and you see all this paneling and big office, and
pictures, it's usually a him, that's got these type pictures.
Pictures of him at sporting events, pics, signed footballs, basketballs, pictures of
him with politicians on golf courses. Uh-uh, Go find the CEO that's got, quote a
regular office, that spends his or her time working in the company, working on
the business. Managers and leaders have to flight, fight
elitism and a sense of entitlement daily, it's a little bit like alcohol anonymous 1
day at a time. Yes, you will be paid lots more, but try
to make that the only differentiator. Quiz four, time to test, time to see
what's sticking, okay. We want stickiness, we want to be like
epoxy glue, we want these concepts to be like epoxy glue in your brain.
And then we want to translate if from your brain to behavior, okay.
Edward D. HessProfessor of Business Administration
