Doing the Right Thing

A friend of mine had a small altercation with another vehicle this week. Fortunately it was a minor prang with noone injured and both cars still drivable. The bad news for him was that he had turned right into oncoming traffic which incurs a 'negligent driving' charge and a trip to court. A less scrupulous member of society suggested that, considering the legal fees he will incur and the time he will loose, it would be more expedient for him to offer a substantial bribe and see if the situation could be made to go away. My friend likes his lawyer and would rather pay him than incur the wrath of the authorities for attempted bribery, he will be going to court. Bribery and corruption has to stop somewhere. Here is why.

Let us take the example above and examine it hypothetically. Say my mate goes the bribe route and, heaven help us, actually managed to get it to work. He will have helped corrupt the police force. Now a corrupt police force is not interested in reducing crime. If anything they will get excited every time a crime is committed or an accident happens because it becomes an opportunity to line their pockets. They will stop doing what they are meant to do. They stop doing the right thing.

This article is about doing the right thing, not the moral right in this case, but the right thing for your business that will help catapult it up. Each of us has an idea about what we should be doing, about how we should be behaving. Every organisation, public and private, has a concept about what they do, and this concept shapes their behaviour and their measurables.

As an example let us look at a police force again. What should police do? If the answer to that is 'Catch criminals' or 'Fight crime' then that is what they will gear up to do. Programs will be devised to get criminals off the street, patrols beefed up, pressure to increase jail terms. What if the answer was 'Prevent crime' or 'Keep a neighbourhood safe'. These answers allow for a different strategies. Preventing crime is not just about keeping thieves off the street but stopping them from becoming criminals in the first place, addressing socio-economic attitudes and issues that promote a life of crime. Keeping people safe includes safely awareness talks, pressuring local authorities to deal with traffic hot-spots. One of my most memorable police interactions was a lecture on the safety reasons for wearing my seatbelt (I had not been) and that the officer concerned did not want to find my head through my windscreen (he was still going to fine me, but it was clear that my safety was his prime interest). They still catch criminals, you will still get fined for not stopping at a Stop sign, but they also have so much more they can do.

You need to ask yourself if you are doing the right thing in your business. This is not something that requires a brief moment of thought. This is soul searching stuff that includes what you really want to do for your clients, your staff, and your organisation. It may radically shift your strategy and outcomes. It also probably requires some measurables to help you plan and decide.

A medical client of mine recently moved offices. This was part of a strategy to increase client numbers by moving to closer to his market. He moved in September and the end of the year was touch and go numbers wise as people struggled to find his new location. Then January hit, it was phenomenal. He was busy; working full days, the phone kept ringing. At the surface it looked like the move had finally paid off. That was until he looked at the statistics for the last year. Well last January was pretty good as well. He needed something a little more tangible if he was to justify his decision. One thing to keep in mind when looking at statistics is to consider changes in the 'minority' groupings in response to change (how are your big spenders responding, what is your low income bracket doing, that sort of thing). For my medical friend he found a shift in the behaviour of his post-hospital clients. Before the move many of them would not come back to see him, about 50% of them would leave. After the move he had a 90% retention. Now that is something he can boast about. You have to watch what you measure and examine it carefully.

Before you go on a big metrics drive bear in mind that most small businesses cannot afford to get bogged down in statistics. Pick a few things to monitor and watch, just make sure they are the right thing. For example if a jail perceives its role as 'keeping prisoners in' they will measure 'number of escapes' and 'number of inmates'. If they look at 'Rehabilitating offenders into society' they will measure 'number of repeat offenders' as their primary metric.

Take time to examine what your focus is on. Do the right thing. Measure the right metrics. If needs be go totally radical in what you do. Door to door visits through a community to raise awareness of police presence may be a totally radical crime prevention idea. So is offering me random amounts of free airtime to spend during a twenty-four hour period as part of a promotion. So is calling up everyone who came to your restaurant last night to find out how they found the meal, or maybe you just have to call up those who spent over thirty dollars a head. Perhaps it is a completely new shop layout to aid customer flow and your 'quick pickers'. I do not know what is right for you, just work it out, do it, and measure the result.

$1000 an hour: What is it worth?

It appears that it is open season on the heads of public or semi-public firms in Zimbabwe that have been drawing large salaries, or engaging in less that transparent financial activities. The headlines the last week or so have seen a number of corporate heads coming under scrutiny for either taking salaries not commensurate with company performance or for being involved in shady deals. One gentleman had a salary and benefits that was reported to exceed the $1000 an hour mark (given a forty hour working week). Not a bad income at all even after you take taxes into consideration.

Time for Zach to put the cat among the pigeons. If the company the $1000 an hour gentleman was managing was debt free, offering an above average service to its clients that made it a market leader in the field, settling payouts quickly with no shortfalls, paying decent staff salaries to the rest of the organisation; if it was doing all these things, would anyone really care how much the Chief Executive was earning? In such a case would not his performance justify such an income?

A quick search on the internet reveals that, while not the majority, incomes in excess of a thousand dollars an hour are not uncommon. It is complicated by the fact that some professionals that charge that amount (think high-end lawyers and surgeons) have to cover their expenses through their end charges and the reported income of many CEO's has income from shares, benefits and the occasional book sale thrown in to boot.

So here is the question of the week: What would justify a salary of a thousand dollars an hour? I want your feedback. Email me your responses to this informal survey. Before you jump in and yell being President of the United States bear in mind he earns a basic salary of US$400 000 a year before adding benefits and other non-Presidential incomes from things like book sales.

Here are a few things to consider as you plan your response.

How should the income of a top executive of a company relate to the employees under him? Some countries have a very narrow salary spread between top and bottom earners. Morally should the creator of a company be able to sleep at night with an hourly income that exceeds the monthly wage of his employees who are struggling to send their children to school simply because he makes the high risk decisions.

Certain fields carry inherent risk and should be rewarded for such. Take a landmine clearing agent who runs the daily risk of blowing himself up, or the high crane operator that needs to not drop his cargo on the road below or the air traffic controller. You really do not want an air traffic controller being distracted by his inability to pay for his medical insurance as your plane comes in to land.

We live in a world of perceived relative values some of which are rather skewed. For example teachers, those we entrust to educate the next generation, have traditionally been paid less than their true worth. How about the surgeon who is going to take your life in his hands to take out a brain tumour.

To what extent should performance be related to remuneration? Take the surgeon example a step further, what would happen if he only got paid for a successful outcome (now I know most surgeons are not in it just for the money but the example is too good to pass up)?

Now for another perspective on the question. Personalise it. What would you need to do to be worth a thousand dollars an hour? Perhaps that is too far out for you. Many professionals in Zimbabwe work on a fee scale between $50 to $200 an hour (before expenses). So if a thousand is too far out for you to imagine ask what you would need to do to net $200 an hour. What would you need to change in yourself? Where could you see extra sources of income that tick in without you having to work on then (investments, book sales, rental income, that sort of thing)? Now this probably wont be an overnight plan mind you but it is worth a thought, especially if it is the sort of thought that catalysts you into being a better person. I look forward to reading your emails.