Incentives versus Integrity

I changed jobs during my career in order to get higher pay, but I have never really “worked for money” nor ever “worked harder” because of so-called incentives. For these reasons I view the current debate about incentives and bonuses as a sign of decadence, unworthy of us as a people. That’s the gist, but let me enlarge.

Lest my view is dismissed out of hand, yes, I have held jobs where management could earn a bonus. And, yes, I did earn bonuses. But the results I achieved would have been exactly the same with or without bonuses. They would have been the same even if my bonus had been three times as big as it was. I also had stock options. And these influenced my performance—not at all. They never have.

Next, let me be precise about that other phrase: never worked for money. What I mean is that I’ve always separated the two concepts, work on this side, money on that. I did not come from an independently wealthy family. For that reasons, I always needed wages or salaries to maintain my family and myself. Thus I made my contribution to society in occupations that were paid. But once I took a job, I pretty much forgot about the money and just got on with the work.

A third comment by way of background. I’ve never worked for a commission—on principle. I figured that if my income depended entirely on what I could sell, my employer was just using me without making any commitment to me, without taking any risk. I bore all the risk. And if so, why split my earnings with some leech above me? Why be an employee? I have worked for myself and, therefore, made my own weather. I worked just as hard for others as for myself. The work-money division remained even then. The worries were greater—especially after I had others whom I employed.

The notion that people only perform if they are goaded by a carrot always just a little out of reach is demeaning to the human spirit. I’ve never hired lazy people knowingly, and if I did, I let them go quickly. I looked for dedicated, honest, self-motivated, and responsible people. When I paid them I paid them as much as the system would bear. When we had surpluses, we paid bonuses too.

Survey after survey of the American labor force—and Brigitte and I answered such surveys during our work-lives—always showed that what employees really wanted was just a little more control. Why that? So that they could be more effective. They wanted more ownership of that which they were doing, less busy-body hovering. Pay always came close to the bottom in such surveys of motivation—and always to the surprise of the survey takers. Why? Did those social scientists think that people are ducks?

I am convinced that the vast majority of people in the workplace resemble me a lot more than they resemble the few highly placed ducks that compete so fiercely for bits of bread tossed into the lake and just swim away when the bag is empty. I know the kingdom to which those folks belong. I’ve always aimed higher. The collective mantra repeated unthinkingly over the media by countless business pundits—namely that performance only emerges when the gains are very rich—is never experienced in 99.99999 percent of the workplaces in America. What are these people talking about? Whom are they kidding? To use an old-fashioned expression, I spit it out. I don’t buy it.