Show me the money . . . really?

Zeppo rocked back in his chair, viewed the calendar on the wall and considered his first two weeks on the job.  Then, looking over at our superintendent and his assistant, Zeppo let fly with a tactical comment, "I like working here, this is a great crew, so much better than where I worked before.  Too bad you don't pay a little more so a guy could live right, I'd have this program up to date in no time". 

   

That day a request for a wage increase for Zeppo arrived on my desk.

I gave Ace, our superintendent a call, "What's up with the pay request?  Zeppo has only been here a couple weeks, yes?."

Ace's voice carried an evangelical intensity over the phone, "True, but I'm going to lose him if I can't pay more.  If he was making more money I think he'd be more focused, he'd get this software straightened out, I really need him motivated."

I ran my hand over my face in that time honored self rub of stress relief and replied, "Not a good idea Ace, wage increases work after performance, not before."

Ace replied, "No, really, I need this, I need this guy to be motivated."

I made another run at the truth, "Money isn't a primary motivator, Ace."

The intensity in Ace's voice increased, "Sure it is, get a pay increase and a guy will really buckle down and work."   

Almost every one of us who work for a living wants to believe this . . . but it just isn't true.  To his credit, Ace was persistent, he really believed . . . that's important, so I agreed to Ace's request, not because it would change Zeppo's behavior . . . I was sure it would not, but because it would reinforce Ace's behavior.  Mistakes made while working hard, trying hard, trying to do what's good of the company, are valuable experiences.  Ace was about to have a valuable experience, I just didn't want it to be too expensive.

So I said, "OK, Boss Man, come over and pick up the approval, but when you do, leave on my deck in a sealed envelope, inside put your prediction on Zeppo's performance in 30 days.  I'll do the same, and we'll see who's prediction is most accurate.  The loser buys lunch at Tex-Mex."

I really enjoyed that lunch at Tex-Mex.  My prediction simply stated what overwhelming research has shown, which was that the wage increase would improve Zeppo's behavior for 2 weeks, after which his performance would quickly drop even lower than before the wage increase. 

Well, Zeppo moved on, and Ace, to his credit, quickly understood how he could be using his wage budget more effectively.  No more throwing money at bad work in the hope of a magical, alchemical transmutation of bad performance into good.  Money is a "keeper", if used unwisely it will keep bad workers just as effectively as great workers.  Use it to keep the good ones.

Core Teams are Vital

Singularly lonely, perched on a small Noll, our 14' Wide x 44' Long job trailer jerked and rocked on wobbly tires. No tie downs anchored us into the ground . . . which was nothing but blow sand anyway. But we were set perpendicular to a steady 50mph western wind, so we acted safe and confident, but felt like . . . what are doing here?

Just after dawn on the first day "the team", Mike, site superintendent and myself, had been gazing over our new, raw, 47 acre construction site. No power, no water, no road, no nothin' but blow sand. In 18 months the construction plan required that a new 160,000sf food processing facility to be up and running.

By noon that same day the arrival of the first, of many, sand storms did a vanishing trick on our construction site. Like a TV set that has lost its signal, the view out our job trailer window became brown chaos, flying horizontal. We held onto the trailer wall and stared at the brown out, . . . Mike, in a low, gravelly voice muttered, "Ever see that movie Hadalgo?" I replied, "Ever see that movie Perfect Storm?"

He was referring to the flying sand, I was referring to the project. The real question we were asking each other was should we stay and fight, or do we run? Only hindsight could tell us the best answer.

We chose to stay, and without consciously knowing it, we began to lay the foundation for a successful project. It wasn't a foundation of concrete or steel, but something stronger . . . willing commitment. Sometimes its called "buy in". But the key is that it is not what is said verbally, it's what is felt . . . internally. Commitment isn't found in contracts, speeches, promises, motivational excitement, or money, its found in facing reality . . . and committing to stay. Facing reality and committing to stay is known by another word: integrity.

When faced with a difficult project the first ingredient of success that must be present is integrity. Every project, no matter how big, has at its core a small pack of people. A bond of real integrity must exist in that group. Our core project team, our pack, consisted of only four people, but each one had integrity . . . willing commitment to the project. Consequently, I knew, no matter how tough things got, eventually we would succeed, and we did . . . under budget and on schedule.

Run from projects without it, commit to projects with it . . . a primary ingredient of project success: core team integrity.