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The value of your employees voluntary contributions are capped at the least valuable thing you put on their list of things to do. If your employee’s best chanc

by jl2718 6y ago

The value of your employees voluntary contributions are capped at the least valuable thing you put on their list of things to do. If your employee’s best chance at success are in the success of your business, they’ll do great things without being asked, that you don’t even know about. If not, it doesn’t matter what you ask them to do.

whall6 6y ago
I can’t really see how the value of employee contributions are capped at the least valuable thing they have the responsibility to do. As for the second part of your reply, I entirely agree. When employees catch the vision of the company as a whole, it makes sense that they would be motivated to bring something to the table on their free time. Much harder to do within larger orgs.
rsj_hn 6y ago
I think this is only true if you create a workplace environment that encourages this. If you micromanage your employees with metrics, they will adjust their behavior to maximize the metrics, and you will know exactly what they are doing (but not if they are doing what they should be doing).
- jl2718 5y ago
  No. You will expect them to maximize the metrics, but they will do the minimum, and think you’re an idiot, and the quality of their work will be terrible, and they won’t say a word. Every new hire is an opportunity to let that person do their best work for the company. Your opportunity to screw up because you think you know better. If that doesn’t make sense to you, you’re probably in the 60-90% that HBR classifies as negative value managers. We have this idea that management is just a bunch of simple processes, and it is, in the same way that building a bridge is just welding together steel beams. Every struggling engineer wants to be a manager because they think it’s easier work with more power over other people and higher pay, which it is, and this incentive structure creates this reality no matter how hard you fight it. Think about the opposite. What would happen if each engineer had a budget and they decide how much they want to pay whom for management services? How would your role as a manager change in that situation? To earn a salary, you would have to have an extraordinary competence in helping people to be more effective, or just play politics downward. And the engineers, well, they could choose to be lazy and incompetent, or they could be aggressive and incompetent, or they could be ambitious and disciplined, or whatever they want to be. So you see how the situation is not that different with the roles reversed.

by jl2718 6y ago

whall6 6y ago

I can’t really see how the value of employee contributions are capped at the least valuable thing they have the responsibility to do. As for the second part of your reply, I entirely agree. When employees catch the vision of the company as a whole, it makes sense that they would be motivated to bring something to the table on their free time. Much harder to do within larger orgs.

rsj_hn 6y ago

I think this is only true if you create a workplace environment that encourages this. If you micromanage your employees with metrics, they will adjust their behavior to maximize the metrics, and you will know exactly what they are doing (but not if they are doing what they should be doing).

jl2718 5y ago
No. You will expect them to maximize the metrics, but they will do the minimum, and think you’re an idiot, and the quality of their work will be terrible, and they won’t say a word. Every new hire is an opportunity to let that person do their best work for the company. Your opportunity to screw up because you think you know better. If that doesn’t make sense to you, you’re probably in the 60-90% that HBR classifies as negative value managers. We have this idea that management is just a bunch of simple processes, and it is, in the same way that building a bridge is just welding together steel beams. Every struggling engineer wants to be a manager because they think it’s easier work with more power over other people and higher pay, which it is, and this incentive structure creates this reality no matter how hard you fight it. Think about the opposite. What would happen if each engineer had a budget and they decide how much they want to pay whom for management services? How would your role as a manager change in that situation? To earn a salary, you would have to have an extraordinary competence in helping people to be more effective, or just play politics downward. And the engineers, well, they could choose to be lazy and incompetent, or they could be aggressive and incompetent, or they could be ambitious and disciplined, or whatever they want to be. So you see how the situation is not that different with the roles reversed.