Page 177 - Executive Warfare

The People You Have to Motivate

And I was no more eager to spend four hours on the golf course with
my coworkers when I was the boss. The people who’ve played with you
now feel that they’re special. They go tell all their buddies, and suddenly,
you appear to be playing favorites.
This is far from the only problem inherent in socializing with your
employees. Some of them will use any situation outside the office, when
everybody’s guard is down, to lobby you for something you probably don’t
want to give them. Commissioned salespeople are the worst offenders on
this score. They are very difficult to manage because, like bettors at a race
track or in Las Vegas, they are always looking for an edge.
Even worse, social occasions give your employees the opportunity to
tell you something personal that will come back to haunt you. I tried to
make it clear that if people wanted to
talk to me, they would have to do it in a
business-like setting.
HAVING AN
Unfortunately, I did not always suc-
OCCASIONAL
ceed.A number of years ago I was in the
GROUP DINNER
Caribbean for a conference. I was sitting
WITH YOUR
by the beach when the head of a big
EXECUTIVES IS
office wandered over to me and began
CERTAINLY
telling me about a guy who worked for
APPROPRIATE, BUT
him whose license to sell certain prod-
HAVING YOUR
ucts was being revoked because he was
SOCIAL LIFE
accused of committing a felony. But, the
REVOLVE AROUND
office head said, it really wasn’t the guy’s
THE OFFICE IS
fault: As a child, he’d been sexually
VERY DANGEROUS.
abused by his father.
Trying to extricate myself, I said,
“Look, I don’t make up the rules about
who gets to keep their license. We are a company that is somewhat for-
giving, but I just don’t know what the transgressions are, and I don’t know
the law.”

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