Page 52 - Hard Goals

Heartfelt 43

little Billy, but thousands of people are counting on me to fi nish
this report so their stock goes up and they have enough money
to buy food and clothes.”
Now, imagine the guy who works the line at that organiza-
tion skipping into the offi ce to create shareholder wealth. Or
saying to his little Billy, “I’m sorry, son, but Daddy has to weld
three more parts so the company’s stock price goes up by a
millionth of a point, thus making some rich people just a little
richer. And no, we won’t see even a dime of it, so don’t ask for
that new bike.”
Money is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but working
for money will always be an inadequate motivator if there isn’t
also something more emotional. They’re not mutually exclusive,
of course, but too many companies act as if once they’ve offered
employees some money, they’ve fi nished with the task of con-
necting people to their goals. A few senior executives may be
intrinsically charged up to boost share price, but the folks on
the frontlines need something else, too. And frankly, companies
whose sole existential anchor is money (for example, Enron,
Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers) will never outperform a com-
pany whose existence is predicated on creating an emotional
attachment to customers.
If you’re the CEO of a company, I’d be willing to bet that
Google makes more money than your organization. That’s not
a slight, just a (likely) statement of fact. (By my quick calcula-
tions, at the end of 2009 Google had over $26 billion in work-
ing capital.) And yet, when it comes to setting goals, Googlers
are all about personal emotional connection.
Serving something more emotional than money is really
hard for a lot of companies. Google says it very well in its cor-