Let's Pretend

I am certain that you have played the game 'let's pretend'.  If not, here are the rules:

• you are provided with a scenario and you use your imagination to see what you would do in that situation...pretty easy.

So here goes.  You are the gold bear in the photo above.  You have just had your meal taken away from you by the brown bear.  As gold bear, you have worked hard to find and trap this fish, you actually had it in your jaw and then after a short struggle, it was gone.  What do you do?

Would you like me to put it in people terms?  You are working your butt off, more than 60 hours a week, less than 1 day off each week with little payroll and diminishing results because the market has tightened up.  You are struggling to make your bottom-line numbers - you can get there some months in dollars, some months in percent, but never exactly what the company is looking for because of the economic situation and new competitors in the marketplace, not to mention the unrealistic budgets and pie-in-the-sky promises to shareholders.  Now, your boss states that if you cannot come in on your numbers, save payroll and hit all operational targets, then your bonus (which you have received in varying degrees for 20+ years) is now not only in jeopardy, but in fact, gone.  What do you do?

Why are you working for these people?
Are you really happy here?

It sounds just awful, but unfortunately it is the grim reality for many right now.  And instead of finding ways to assist people in reaching goals, companies are turning to the 'brown bear' mentality and taking food out of their team member's mouths in hopes to inspire momentum.

No one ever learns or stays the course due to fear. Instead you will have employees (not team members, because who wants to be on your team if you treat them like this) looking for ways to construct their dismissal so that they can get a fat severence package from the brown bear....hoping that someone else is crazy enough to take their place.

So who are you?  Gold bear or brown bear?  What is your next step? 

What You Can Learn from an Exit Interview

This company has undergone a few leadership changes in the past 2 years. New president, new VP – twice, new senior director – three times. The latest departure - a senior director – was in role for 3 days, went to a high level competitor.

In the exit interview, it was clearly understood that the remuneration for the role had quite a bit of flexibility. When the exiting leader stated what the other company offered for salary (addition of 25% of current salary), there was no hesitation in the ‘we’ll match that’ statement out of the president’s mouth. The president also stated that although the company had not provided a specific bonus clause for a decade, they would for this year guarantee this specific bonus payout.


Imagine the things you learn in an exit interview – you were certainly underpaid in the role you were in, let alone the one you were going into. What else could have been so underfunded or done with such lack of integrity if this quick conclusion could be reached with a single breath? Makes you glad you are leaving, and sad for those left behind.