What are you paid for

“I am paid for my decisions, not for the hours of work.”Said the man of few words, patted on my shoulder and drove off.

As a Coach when I meet the sponsor to understand the coaching need, one of the most often expressed needs is that the leader is not strategic. The problem is strong when young leaders are groomed to take up senior leadership roles.  It may be expressed in various ways like “He has been managing the operations well, but he needs to shift his perspective” or “She is all the time running around managing operations, she has no time to sit down and think”. Being strategic has multiple dimensions like long-term thinking, understanding complex business scenarios, anticipating changes and a lot more. It encompasses a broad spectrum of ways of thinking and behaviours.

But when I talk to the Coachees, they will be genuinely puzzled. I would hear “I have been strategizing to make the software release this quarter itself“, “I have been strategizing to influence the customer and win the project in our favour“,etc.  Strategy is one of the often misunderstood and misused terms.  

I was in the same boat early in my career, when I was a first-line manager, managing a team of about thirty people. We were developing software for a product that was close to consumer electronics. The business cycles were fast, new product launches or upgrades were done almost every year, and there was so much pressure on the margins and tough competition.  Project schedules would be unrealistic, requirements would be changing continuously, and there would be a cap on number of people to be deployed. Yet the expectation was to have successful product launches on time and within cost.

The only way the projects were managed was by working overtime. It was an unwritten norm that the project teams would work late hours every day.  The day would start at 9 am and would go on till 9 pm. Though everyone cribbed initially, it became a habit. We used to proudly say that we were delivering complex projects and that required us to work long hours. The malady advanced to a level that if there was no pressure or escalation, we would feel guilty about leaving early. We would organize meetings and spend time till night. We revelled in the stressful environment.

Being manager of the team, I used to stay back and be with the team. We used to take coffee breaks often. Typically, around 6 pm would be one such break, where we would chat with a cup of coffee in front of the office building, gazing at the setting sun, watching birds returning to their nests and people leaving from office. That was a relaxing ritual that helped us to recoup and pull on for a few more hours.

I used to watch another ritual at the same time. That was the time when our head of the software division would be leaving for home. His driver would come and park the car in from of the building precisely five minutes before six. He would go up and fetch a bag. Our leader would come out at six, wave at us, exchange a few words and happily drive away to home.

One day as I was watching, he came towards me.

 He said, “I know what you are thinking. You must be thinking that we are all slogging here till late night and this guy is happily going home at six every day“.  I could not respond except for a sheepish grin.

He continued “Young man, do you know what am I paid for? “I could not catch the drift.

“I am paid for my decisions, not for the hours of work,“ said the man of few words,  and he patted my shoulder and drove off.

I stood there for a long time.  That was one of the best coaching moments that I had.

That is the precise challenge that the young leaders face. They are caught in operations. They have to manage the show. They must deliver under stressful situations. They have to keep customers satisfied. They must solve problems. They need to keep people motivated. The list is endless.

But is that what the leaders are paid for? If leaders dedicate time to think, understand customers, track trends, anticipate changes, understand causes of repeated stress, make strategies to cope with that, fix problems at the root cause level, prevent fires than firefighting, develop people and delegate work, there would not be any need to stay late hours every day. The journey starts with introspection and reflection, what are we paid for?

I respect those words of wisdom, even today after a few decades.

Author – Sri Krishan, CFI Coach