A Leadership Teaching Moment

Posted by Jim Connolly on 10 December, 2009  Email This Post -  Print This Post

“Why do we have to increase our revenue target for next year?”, the young supervisor asked his boss frustrated because he thought the budgeting process was over three weeks ago.

“Because of the Golden Rule,” the boss replied.

“The Golden Rule?”, the puzzled young supervisor replied.

“Yes,” the boss said.  “The people with the gold make the rules.”  There was a pause.

“How can they sit up there and arbitrarily increase our targets?”, the young supervisor said rather boldly.

“Great question”, the boss replied.  “Because of the shareholders”, the boss replied knowing that a teaching moment was about to take place.

The young supervisor was very puzzled.  “Aren’t we a private company?”, the supervisor added.

“Yes we are”, the boss said.  He went on.  “But the five shareholders who own the company have a choice to make on where to invest their money.  Should they continue to invest here where there is a risk that they could lose some of their money and where their return is not guaranteed or should they sell the company and put their money in the bank and get a guaranteed return?  We have to make the case to the shareholders that investing in the company again next year is the best return on investment for them.”

“Wow, now that makes more sense,” the young supervisor said enlightened by his boss’ teaching moment.  “So, what can we do to increase the revenue target for next year?”, he added.

“Let’s go back over the numbers and see what we can do”, the boss said now confident that his new young supervisor was committed to this organizational goal for the first time.

For more insights on how to effectively link employees, process, organizational results and return on investment in organizations, check out our other blog articles here.