Ego...tricky, tricky

We are all human, we are all driven by our ego, most successful people absolutely hate to lose. That could be losing an order or missing the last putt for all the?skins or?losing your best manager to a competitor down the street…it all hits you right where you live. How you handle that loss can literally change the trajectory of your career and your business. I’ve seen just about every reaction to loss in my business; the owner of a large?distributor called me up to confront me on recruiting one of his managers, that company is now my very best client, I’ve had a manager call me to confront me about recruiting his people, he then told me that he’d be waiting for me in the?parking?lot after work (true story) Ego, is a tricky mistress?and because we’re human, it can?surface in a way that hurts you more than you even realize. I recently placed an automation specialist and when I asked him why he would want to leave such a successful company, he?said,‘let me put some thought to that and then shot this to me-

There is one reason why I want to?leave,?and his name is Tom. I’ve been the top performer for this company for 8 years, my sales?are well over $10M with amazing margins…. seriously, it’s almost like he is trying to make me quit. In my opinion, if you want to chase off your best people, just follow his strategy.

1) Mess with their money.

2) Ignore their ideas and feedback.

3) Provide limited [if any] flexibility.

4) Fail to be transparent about the impact of their work.

5) Dangle the carrot of advancement but never let them take a bite.

6) Reward them for exceeding quota by setting new unattainable and unrealistic quotas.

7) Bad mouth folks who left to folks who remain.

8) Harm their reputation by failing to deliver what you asked them to sell.

9) Be slow to respond to their communications.

10) Be upset with how they’re spending their own time.

11) Reward toxic team members who do the bare minimum.

12) Guilt them for taking time off when they already hit quota.

13) Blame them for the mess they?inherited and are trying to fix.

14) Fail to promote from within.

15) Question every decision and micromanage into stalemates.

I suppose, the opposite is the reason behind why there are a handful of distributors I’ve never, ever, in over 20 years been able to recruit a single person from!?

Prudence Thompson