In 1998, a rap group called The Lox came out with a song called Money, Power and Respect.
As crazy as this might seem initially, when you think about it what do you believe most people who work in
any company or at any business really want out of life?
I was thinking about this after reading two very diverse things that, oddly enough, touched on the same
subject. The first was a poem that was titled "Letter Of Resignation" on someone's blog, where the person
talked about all the work she was doing and all the promises the company kept making to her, but over time
she realized they were just making those promises to keep her there without ever making any moves to follow
through on any of them. When she finally left, they kept trying to call her at her new place of employment,
but she was done with them.
The second was a book I was checking out at Barnes & Noble called 15 Bedtime Stories That Keep Entrepreneurs
Awake At Night by David Ingram. He tells this one story of having two employees who were very valuable to
the company, but after a while both of them wanted more than he felt he could give them at the time. Both
of them left around the same time, and he learned quickly that the money and responsibility, or power, that
each one of them needed and wanted was worth the cost to him and the company. In the long run he gave both
of them what they wanted to come back, they did, and the company thrived.
When surveys are given to employees at companies throughout the country, what constantly comes up,
although not in these specific terms all the time, are money, power and respect. It makes sense when
you think about it.
Employees know they're the reason companies get to be as successful as they are, yet many of them don't
make even 1/10th the money of the CEO, who might have been there only a year or less because CEOs are
more expendable than employees when you think about it. They want more money, while understanding that
if companies actually paid everyone more money than industry standard that those companies probably
wouldn't survive.
Employees also know and understand their jobs for the most part, and yet they often run into supervisors
and managers who either take them for granted or don't believe they have the intellect to do their jobs
properly. Sometimes these managers are looking for perfection in their employees, something that can't
happen. A man named Sean McDonald, CEO of Precision Therapeutics, recently told a group of aspiring
entrepreneurs, "Be satisfied with excellence. Leave perfection up to God." I don't know if he
originated it or not, but it was a great quote. Employees want to be respected for the jobs they do and
acknowledgment costs nothing except some time and some honest evaluation.
Power is an interesting thing to think about. We all know that there can only be so many levels of
leadership at every company; or do we? Being a leader doesn't always equate to power if the leader
is inept. Sometimes, the leaders don't have to be inept to have a false sense of power. In the
military, officers make the big bucks but sergeants run the show. Wise officers make sure they take
into the account the experiences and wisdom of sergeants who have front line and direct experience with
troops because they understand who does the real every day work.
Businesses don't often understand that role. I've seen many a manager not recognize that many of
their employees go to another employee for advice before they'll go to the manager. Sometimes when
they do, they come down on that person for answering people's questions instead of having them go to
the manager. That's a terrible way to do business, and its result will often be de-motivating to the
employee who's been doing a great job, getting credit from coworkers, yet begins to feel unappreciated
by management. Managers need to recognize good employees and find ways to give them power, or at least
a sense of power, and then find ways to help them move up within the business or risk losing a very
valuable and proven employee.
Think about your own situation. Can you truthfully say that you don't care about money, power,
or respect in your life, business or personal? Are you working for free? Are you just doing what
you have to do and going home at night totally happy and not caring whether anyone respects the work
you do? Could you be happy without having the freedom to at least have a say in how things go within
your office, or having people acknowledge that you have knowledge that's valuable to others? Sure,
you might say you don't care about all of them, but can you say you don't care about any of them?
And if you care about at least one of them, isn't it plausible that others would care about at least
one of them?
Money, power and respect; how will you find a way to honor your employees?