I once worked for a large financial services firm as a contractor. It was there that I met Reg (name changed). If you had to sum up Reg’s responsibilities, it was to produce a set amount of work, attend two meetings and notify people of the latest industry news.
He had his set weekly work done in around 10 hours, meetings took 4 hours and the industry update took him 30 minutes to compile. 14.5 hours per week. My job was to help boost output but it wouldn’t be from people like Reg who had no incentive to change.
So we did the dance around the subject. I listened to the delicate art of making what is quick sound way too technical for most people. I listened to a person who desperately wanted to keep his lifestyle and work at his current level.
My job wasn’t to get Reg to produce more but to provide help. It was an eye-opener to see how he had no incentive to produce more and had to work so hard to stay exactly where he was. Probably a big reason that I’m a freelancer, an entrepreneur and a business owner.
Great question! If you need a website launched by this afternoon, then you have a few fast website builders to choose from. We’ll start with the super simple web page builders through to the more feature-rich builders: Simplenote – it doesn’t get much simpler than writing your notes down in Simplenote and then clicking the …
I was providing some consulting to a growing toy company last week and loved working with a passionate owner, keen to try new things and streamline their processes. The main takeaways were: Start with a set distribution model but be open to defending your area position but adopting new channels. The owner was fixed on …
July was a great month across our core businesses and side projects. Let’s dive into what we’ve been doing… Generous Work Built several websites for clients on WordPress, Squarespace, Carrd and Weebly (dependant on their business needs and desire to update themselves) Built NPS-style surveys for clients Produced content across all projects System & Process …
How incentives get in the way of change
I once worked for a large financial services firm as a contractor. It was there that I met Reg (name changed). If you had to sum up Reg’s responsibilities, it was to produce a set amount of work, attend two meetings and notify people of the latest industry news.
He had his set weekly work done in around 10 hours, meetings took 4 hours and the industry update took him 30 minutes to compile. 14.5 hours per week. My job was to help boost output but it wouldn’t be from people like Reg who had no incentive to change.
So we did the dance around the subject. I listened to the delicate art of making what is quick sound way too technical for most people. I listened to a person who desperately wanted to keep his lifestyle and work at his current level.
My job wasn’t to get Reg to produce more but to provide help. It was an eye-opener to see how he had no incentive to produce more and had to work so hard to stay exactly where he was. Probably a big reason that I’m a freelancer, an entrepreneur and a business owner.
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Great question! If you need a website launched by this afternoon, then you have a few fast website builders to choose from. We’ll start with the super simple web page builders through to the more feature-rich builders: Simplenote – it doesn’t get much simpler than writing your notes down in Simplenote and then clicking the …
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July was a great month across our core businesses and side projects. Let’s dive into what we’ve been doing… Generous Work Built several websites for clients on WordPress, Squarespace, Carrd and Weebly (dependant on their business needs and desire to update themselves) Built NPS-style surveys for clients Produced content across all projects System & Process …