ARTICLES
Written By Rich For You.
Are You A Bonus Delivery Officer?
What the heck is a Bonus Delivery Officer?
You're not a CEO. Or a CMO, COO, CIO, CTO or any other C-Level title. You're not a GVP, AVP, MVP or VP.
You're not a Senior Director, Partner, Manager, Owner, etc.
You are a Bonus Delivery Officer.
Your primary role in your position is not to deliver on projects, motivate the team, present information, or hob-nob with the hoi-poloi.
You are a Bonus Delivery Officer.
You may ask:
"What is a Bonus Delivery Officer?" It's a person who delivers bonuses to their people — it's that simple.
The problem is most managers — from someone who only has one direct-report to the CEO — do not see themselves as Bonus Delivery Officers (or BDO).
A BDO is someone who ensures via financial planning and sheer determination to reward their staff. With MONEY. Not the phrase, "You're lucky you still have your job." They need to keep their eye on what I call "What's Left" or Revenue minus Costs.
Unfortunately, most companies and their executives are graded by a number of other measures which don't trickle down the MONEY. How many organizations in the past few years have delivered reductions in pay or flat payouts while upper management and major shareholders still receive outlandish payouts and bonuses?
Get where I'm going? What I've described is not a healthy enterprise. And sick enterprises easily control and keep their people during bad times (because there's nowhere else to go), but when times begin to turn around and improve — WATCH OUT.
You're going to see a tsunami of your best and hardest-working people leave to better-performing and better paying positions. And they will never look back.
Why am I so harsh? Because it's the responsibility of the people in the higher echelons to deliver profits — by planning, anticipating the market, understanding the consumer, and managing all the moving parts. But for many years, they have been caught with their pants down and their hand in the till — a "Whoops, sorry" attitude, a "We'll do better next year" attitude, or a "Sorry, I have to do this to YOU" attitude.
No more. The world is changing AGAIN. Get ready for the Tsunami.
The idea for this post came from a good friend and client — Thanks Lisa B!
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Fire The CEO! That Will Never Happen.
Instead of firing the people who make your products, it's high time we focus in on the actual people making the bad decisions.
Read this today: "IBM Corp. this summer will lay off hundreds of workers in the Hudson Valley region as part of a $1 billion company restructuring that could cut as many as 8,000 jobs worldwide." (link) The truth: Bad management decisions by the top impact the hard workers under them.
It happens time and time again - when the same cast of characters - The Board, Chairman, CEO, President, CFO, CMO, CIO, COO, CSO, (and many others) make decisions which are either good for Wall Street (to get that pennies per share price up) or good for them (so they can hold onto their jobs for another year).
It's the typical corporate country two-step - instead of innovation and growth - they focus on swaying to the gyrations of factory/office closings and staff reductions. Make a bad decision? Time to start firing up the guillotine! Instead of realizing that THEY (management) have made serious miscalculations of the market/their customers/their competition, they continue on in their role (with HUGE bonuses) while they slowly eviscerate the organization from the inside out.
Think of what IBM used to be (i.e., the Watsons) where they took bold ideas, acted upon them, and led the industry. They picked up on the PC, Laptops, Operating Systems, Enterprise Solutions, etc. What happened?
Why isn't IBM in mobile computing? They used to be a leader. Answer: Short sighted vision and watching-their-butt management. What can benefit management in the short term (just to get another year or two of outrageous bonuses) or playing the market so they can leave and land at their next gig (and do the exact same thing over again). I would love some news organization to start up a Bad CEO database so we can see where they turn up next — we can track them like Lo-Jack for executives.
And before I begin receiving rebuttals . . . I know . . . there are companies who are doing it the right way, IBM and other companies are reacting to industry changes, etc. I just find it's sad to see a leader in American technology lay off 8,000 workers. That's a LOT of good people. Also, I don't hate CEO's — I just hate BAD CEO's. And we all know who they are.