What does it look like when someone is coin operated? This is the person who, any time compensation comes into play, deeply cares how much money they will make. Their focus on their earnings outweighs any other circumstance: what is best for the company, what is best for their own future, how the situation impacts their peers – and they are often oblivious to how it makes their peers see them. And how they view the people around them comes into play too.
Yes, sometimes I joke that sales people are coin operated. A great sales VP once told me he liked to hire sales guys who had a mortgage, school fees and a boat because they would be very focused on their monthly paycheck. But I have found the best sales people are motivated by winning more than money. Winning the deal, winning against the competitor and winning against their peers – being #1 in the team. And the good ones definitely like to make a lot of money at the same time.
But I also see coin operated behavior in executives who are not in sales, especially when we’re in a period of wealth generation as happens every few years in technology. That is, high growth companies, both startups and public companies, where many people are going to make good money. I’ve learned a lot about CEOs and executives on the way into a job by watching how the negotiate their package. Are they maniacally focused on maximizing their pay (cash and stock), on every dimension? Is the whole process painful because they want to win every point of compensation? And then each year do they make the compensation discussion painful, always wanting more. Sometimes their negotiation is wrapped in a cloak of caring for others such as “I’m just looking out for my team, they’ll leave if we don’t pay them more” or “I’m just looking out for my family” but it’s all the same argument – money is all important in their mind.
CEO pay is a particularly difficult corner case. My experience as a board member has taught me that having the right CEO makes or breaks the future of the company. A great CEO is worth their weight in gold and will not only make money for the investors, they will secure employment and make money for their employees. A weak CEO at a minimum doesn’t achieve the company’s potential and sometimes puts the future of the company at risk. At times the outrageous CEO packages we see make sense but not in every case and sometimes the pay is coming at the expense of the team, especially in startups with a limited stock pool. Note, I’ve worked with CEOs who know every single detail of their pay structure and CEOs who can’t remember exactly how they’re paid because it is not what is most important in their book.
What people who are deeply driven by money don’t realize is how different they are from the people who are not driven by money. Some people don’t know how much money they make, and beyond covering their costs don’t care. (Obviously this does not apply to people struggling to get by, and there are not many of those working in white collar tech jobs.) It amuses me when a board director (who makes good money) asks me to remind them how much they make because they don’t remember. What I have observed is that when someone who is not coin operated has to deal with someone who is there is a loss of respect, sometimes in both directions. It’s hard to respect someone who puts their greed ahead of the needs of their team and peers, pushing for more for themselves at all costs and willing to damage a relationship to get it. And I’ve heard loss of respect in the other direction too. If your measure of success is all about how much money you have it’s harder to respect someone in a similar field to you but who has not optimized their career for money.
I know gender can play a role here. I’ve heard too often that women don’t ask for enough up front, and men ask for too much, but that’s a different issue. Yes, women often are not taught to be hard nosed negotiators. But you can negotiate a fair package for yourself, equivalent to the men around you, without being egregiously greedy. Be aggressive but be fair, reasonable, and don’t burn up respect simply to make more money.
It’s worth thinking through where you stand. Who do you want to be in the corporate world and how do you want other people to see, or respect, you? Do you measure your success in wealth? When you see someone push harder than is reasonable (in your book) for more money how do you react? Do you think “good for them”? Do you think, as someone mentioned to me recently, “Am I the fool in this game that I don’t do that?” Or do you step back and realize you simply can’t behave that way, and you’re OK with that?
Photo: Medieval tapestry in the Cluny Museum, Paris © 2017 Penny Herscher
