Page 233 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

220B RE-ENGAGE

her. Again, the walls shook. We looked at each other and wondered
aloud, “What was that all about!?!”
Only later did we find out. We had just witnessed the aftermath of
a triggering event. Sharon had just learned that she was being paid sig-
nificantly less than the men in the office doing the same job. She had re-
acted with understandable, but uncharacteristic, emotion. Phil, the firm’s
CEO, had just recently promoted Sharon from her job as office manager
into the more prestigious role of professional consultant. She had spent
most of her career in administrative roles and was at the top of her game,
but the firm was growing so fast that new consultants were needed to
handle the business. Phil knew Sharon could handle the promotion: she
was extremely bright, service oriented, dedicated, empathetic, and profes-
sional. What he didn’t know was that trying to buy her services cheap
would result in the firm’s losing a valued employee. Sharon went home
early that afternoon and submitted her resignation the next morning.
Later that morning when Phil told us what had happened, we could
see he was plainly upset and disappointed—with himself. “I really screwed
up,” he confessed. He hadn’t slept much the night before. We suggested
he call Sharon, ask her to reconsider her decision to quit, and offer to pay
her the same as the other consultants, which is what he did. He actually
did more than that; he apologized to Sharon, admitting he had been try-
ing to save money wherever he could. Sharon thought about it overnight
and decided to accept Phil’s new offer. We were happy to have her back at
work and told her so in no uncertain terms, but we wondered, “Would she
ever really trust Phil after that?” We got our answer three months later
when Sharon left to go to work for a competing firm.

: THE HUMAN NEED TO FEEL IMPORTANT AND
BE RESPECTED

When Leigh asks audiences at his presentations to raise their hands
if they receive too much recognition, he generally gets expressions of
smiling bemusement, outright laughter, or responses of “Yeah, right!”