A great new feature was added to credit card statements last year. You’ve probably seen it. Pay the minimum due each month, it says, and you’ll end up paying two or three times as much over the course of 10 or 17 or 22 years. Add just a few dollars more each time, though, and you’ll polish off the balance in 2-3 years and save thousands of dollars.
Knowing that, who would give the minimum?
The same is true in the workplace. If you think it’s okay to have your coat on at 4:59, you might end up being the first one out the door in a whole new way.
Your boss has a job—to accomplish results. To do that he needs to find out who is doing more and more to increase workplace productivity, and to give those “indispensables” more opportunities and promotions.
On the other side, he needs to find those people who constantly need to have others bail them out to meet deadlines or quality standards, and get those folks coached up, or more likely, OUT.
Sounds heartless? Get real. If he doesn’t deal with slackers, he won’t have money to reward his top performers or, worse yet, he’ll have to lay them off. How fair is that?
Life gives to the givers and takes from the takers. If you’re a clock-watcher, you are a taker. Hard to hear, but the only way to fix a problem is to accept it.
Maybe every new hire should find a warning sticker on the desk: “If you give the minimum each day, you can expect to work here a short time and make very little pay. But if you give more than is asked of you, you’re in for a long and happy time here.”
Are you giving the minimum, or going beyond expectations?