Taking One For the Team
December 10th, 2008[ Office Gossip ]
Neil writes here about a recent visit they had from Tim Lister. One of the observations Tim made was:
“that individual team members, especially developers, need to de-optimise themselves to optimise the team. The aim isn’t to get developers developing in the most efficient way: it’s to deliver a complete product. An individual developer might need to sacrifice some personal productivity for the benefit of the overall project. He might need to change the way he works, or throw away some code, or go off and do something else for a bit, so a tester can test sooner or better and the project can run quicker.”
That’s great but companies need to watch for mixed messages they’re sending. I mentioned the idea here of having your compensation plan focus on company interdependence and a common goal. The issue with what Tim suggests above is that most compensation strategies send the opposite message. They rewards teams, or worse individuals, for hitting their targets. Yes I know, the wise managers are meant to craft those team metrics to be in line with the overall company goals but that’s never delivered on, or maintained. As well, how much are you paying your high priced managers to maintain your compensation plan? Is that money well spent?
Be cautious about the clever schemes you devise. People love games and love gaming the system. If you’re not careful you may build a company of people who are excellent at gaming your reward system and leave no one tending your business.
Men’s Warehouse has a history of firing their best sales person in certain locations. The results are that the overall sales for the store increase. What they know is that the fired overachiever was gaming the system by hoarding contacts, information, etc so they could be #1. That’s their job, be #1 right? All Tim’s suggesting is that instead of firing your top performers, find them a role to play in raising the level of your entire company. It’s infinitely more challenging to create an environment that sends that message instead of one based on internal competition.