Don't Lose 'em

If you have several upper left hand corner persons on your team, Don’t-Lose-‘em’s, do a cartwheel. Usually there are only several in a couple dozen. This is the easiest-to-deal-with category. But don’t make the common mistake. Individuals with these quality-of-character and capability characteristics are way too hard to find, so do whatever it takes to keep this person fully motivated and fully compensated before external temptations appear. The common mistake is to skimp a little on compensation, to take him for granted because “he’s loyal, he won’t leave, he’s not looking”. All that may be true, but when an outstanding external offer does materialize, because of their nature they won’t play the game of counter-offers. He’s not likely to come to you with the offer and open negotiations; that’s not his style.  The alternative consideration, providing for the family, will weigh heavily on his conscience.  He’ll be mentally gone before you know it, in a way consistent with his high character quality. And you’ll lose, more ways than seem obvious at first.

These Don’t-Lose-‘em performers are knownto the organization. Losing one or more can be disastrous to morale.  Recognizing them and taking action not only saves them, it also lets the organization know you are pretty smart. The extra compensation and attitude required to make a handful of these employees feel totally loved is irrelevant.  The loss to your organization if you aren’t astute, or skimp, is huge.

Stay within the boundaries of good sense, but making this individual feel really wanted is critical. It’s especially important to create this feeling before a competing offer comes in. Be a leader not a laggard in compensation for this category. Be willing to pay somewhat above grade. Assume big offers will be coming in so stay ahead of the competitive curve. Count on an offer coming in that is so much more than their current compensation plus love package that they’ll question whether they are truly appreciated.  Competitors and recruiters will know this person is somewhat unique and will be in constant contact. 

Due to this individual’s nature, you don’t have to worry much that he’ll be on a search and leave in the middle of the night. You do have to worry about whether he’s being taken for granted.  Don’t let that happen.  Don’t rely on his good attitude, his “heart’s in the right place” loyalty.  Be aggressive; provide the up-front support necessary to make this person unbudgeable. 

Paradyne, a high-tech company that hadn’t produced a new product in five years, provides some examples. When I took over as CEO, the top three design engineers, all highly capable, of excellent character, and loyal to Paradyne, were already halfway out the door. They were well-known in the field but previously the competition thought them to be out of touch and unproductive because of the company’s sluggish performance.

But when Paradyne went on the selling block, the competitors doing their diligence saw firsthand the very modern technologies these three had planned. Soon after several of these companies declined to purchase Paradyne, they began serious recruiting efforts. The contracts and conditions they offered the engineers were extremely lucrative.

Uunfortunately these three hadn’t been appropriately compensated or rewarded for several years. Management had made promises multiple times that were never kept. They were vulnerable to leaving at any moment.

One of my first moves was to develop a personal relationship with each. I then laid out a business plan that committed to taking their latest ideas to fruition. Since their history made them skeptical, I offered all three stay bonuses. Performance bonuses relating to their development objectives were added. I also publicly acknowledged their capabilities and importance to the company on frequent occasions, and raised their salaries to appropriate levels. One had previously received a highly compelling offer and accepted; despite his newly-found reluctance to leave he had made a personal commitment and stuck to it. The other two stayed, created new products that were successful, and contributed heavily to Paradyne’s success.

Don’t let an offer well above the current compensation level start to gnaw on your Don’t-Lose-‘em Performers. Don’t let any of them think their loyalty might be misplaced. Don’t ever lose one. Don’t ever lose one.  Don’t ever lose one!

Comments

[TTS]

Having just taken over management of a technical team, I have been going through assessments of the existing staff because we will need to take some cuts. Must admit that I've been doing the linear approach to evaluations, and it's always lacking because of the obvious dimensional mismatch Tom mentions.

Now I can quickly in my mind identify the few "don't lose 'em's" and the point is taken that I must ensure they know they are appreciated. (How sad that we as managers spend so much time on the problem-people who are never worth it.) But a question comes to mind: For those competents with the poor attitudes, can they be changed? Or do we spend time trying to improve the competencies of those with the good attitudes? Or?

It's not realistic to expect that all will be great performers...at least not in the short term--we need to keep delivering and replacing a large part of the team in the short term is just unrealistic. Thoughts?

[Betsy Wood Knapp]

Tom, I'm trying to email "Don't Lose 'em" to several colleagues. The Feed Blitz website is difficult to use. Question, can I put multiple addresses in the TO field?
Betsy