Editor's Note: Jacque Vilet shares some Classic points - grounded in a memorable true story - about the lessons that experience and "time in the trenches" teaches us. Let us not overlook the opportunity to value, draw upon and share this knowledge.
Here's a story that's been around a long time.
Charles Steinmetz was a brilliant engineer. One of his close friends was Henry Ford.
One day a generator at one of Henry Ford's plants broke down and production came to a halt. Ford brought in mechanics to fix the problem but no one could figure out what was wrong. Reading through a trouble-shooting guide didn't help. Finally he contacted Steinmetz --- his friend, the great genius.
Steinmetz came to the plant and tinkered around awhile checking out all the generators. Then he took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and made an "X" mark on one particular spot of one particular generator. To their amazement the mechanics disassembled that part of the machine and discovered that it was the exact location of the breakdown.
A few days later Ford got a bill from Steinmetz for $10,000. He couldn't believe it so he sent it back and asked Steinmetz to please itemize it. He did and a few days later Ford received a second bill ..itemized.
For making an “X” mark on the generator = $1
For knowing where to make the "X" mark on the generator = $9,999
Henry Ford paid the bill.
Charles Steinmetz knew where to tinker when nobody else did and that made all the difference. The “fix” wasn’t about technical manuals or databases. It came from the wisdom gained through trial and error ---- from experience.
How can we apply this to compensation? Well, think about yourself when you first started out as a Compensation professional. You had your college degree with all the courses you took and all the books you read. Wow! You were really something! You were ready to tackle the world’s toughest compensation problems. Bring ‘em on!
How long did it take you to realize that some problems/situations couldn’t be “fixed” by the books? That your solutions were tempered somewhat by company culture, strategy, priorities, management “quirks” . . . and, might I add, common business sense? That policies were great but sometimes there had to be exceptions? That data was only as good as its interpretation? That the more experience you gained the less you relied on books?
Took a while didn’t it?
I remember in my early compensation days having a “lively discussion” with an Engineering VP that didn’t want to follow the merit matrix guidelines. His argument was that he didn’t want to penalize his top performers by giving them a small increase just because they were paid near the top of the “hypothetical” salary range. It didn’t make sense to him to potentially cause problems when/if these top performers discovered they were getting less than some of the average employees who were lower in the range.
Some of you may disagree but the more he explained what he wanted to do the more it made sense. I finally agreed with him that the most important things were: 1) staying within the overall budget figure, 2) not discriminating against any of the protected classes and 3) truly differentiating the pay increases between his key talent and the rest of the employees.
So, yeah, I bent the rules. And I’d do it again.
OK so what? There are a lot of very experienced Compensation practitioners today. No doubt many will be retiring in the next few years. In the interest of keeping “key learnings” alive ---- why not commit to taking a “newbie” under your wing and being his/her mentor? S/he will still stumble and make some mistakes. But there will probably be fewer than you racked up in your early days.
Besides don’t you think us battle-scarred wizards owe it to the profession to watch out for our own people?
Jacque Vilet, President of Vilet International, has over 20 years’ experience in Global Human Resources with major multinationals such as Intel, Texas Instruments and Seagate Technology. She has managed both local/ in-country national and expatriate programs and has been an expatriate twice during her career. Jacque has the following certifications: CCP, GPHR, HCS and SWP as well as a B.S. and M.S in Psychology plus an MBA. She belongs to SHRM, Human Capital Institute and World at Work. Jacque has been a speaker in the U.S., Asia and Europe, and is a regular contributor to various HR and talent management publications.
*Quote in picture credited to Miles Kington"
OK, being one of those "some who might disagree" about committing the classic compounding sin, I'll explain my retort.
When portly (cough!) rotund Oliver complains that skinny Stan got "more" pie because Stan's pie constituted a larger percentage of Stan's body weight, I notify Oliver that:
(a) the absolute size/weight of his pie slice greatly exceeded that of than skinny Stan's slice because his portion was computed as a ratio of his more massive weight;
(b) he still got a lot more of the pie than Stan, who remains near starvation while obese Oliver should really cut back on caloric intake;
(c) if Oliver considers it more important to get a slice whose size has a higher relative relationship to his existing weight than to receive his absolutely larger pie slice, he merely needs to diet until his weight is less than skinny Stan's so his absolutely smaller pie slice will be relatively equal or slightly larger than Stan's; ... or
(d) ....my preferred option... if the two performed at the same level in jobs of equal value, simply give them the same flat absolute dollars for the same output over this same performance period. Highly paid Oliver will still maintain his grossly imbalanced lead over barely above minimum entry-level-paid Stan... whose absolute merit is actually superior now because he matched old pro Oliver in performance without veteran Oliver's experience and accrued wealth from past years.
Had to stop talking about pie, because I was getting hungry.
Posted by: E. James (Jim) Brennan | 08/01/2019 at 07:53 PM