#spirituality #selfdevelopment #personalitytransformation
Your business team, those employees who work for you, have an incredible impact on your personal life. Your business affects your life, and your employees drive that business forward. That's why a mistake in hiring or selecting a person, in interacting with them, can cost you your life.
When you hire the right director, they can achieve a super leap and result. Maybe they did it with you, but you reached the result together. If you put a bad director in place, you lose everything, and everything falls apart. Everyone around says you're a useless entrepreneur, a bad businessman, but in reality, it was the director of your company who did that. They had a huge influence. This happens often.
Three Parts of Motivation
One of the main tasks when interacting with people is the system of motivation that you agree on to work together with this employee.
Let's look at three parts of motivation within the framework of a motivation system.
In terms of motivation, a person has a salary – what they earn, some financial map, a fixed monthly part. We are now basically considering the majority of people who work in one company.
The second part is some kind of bonus and incentives: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual, five-year. A bonus for certain events, options, that is, everything related to any kind of rewarding and incentivizing.
And the third side is the social package (what is called within at least the Russian-speaking environment). This includes various perks, features for people: a pool, gym, apples, coffee, fridges in the office, a tennis table, some events, activities with employees, gifts for kids for New Year, for March 8, joint trips, some outings, corporate parties.
The Influence of Motivation on Work
How much does motivation affect people's results?
I remind you that people's activities greatly affect the business, and the business affects your life. Therefore, the activities of employees influence your life.
How much does motivation change a person?
In reality, this influence is direct. What does "direct" mean? It means it has an incredible impact. I equally give some ideas, strategy, perform some actions, write texts, technical tasks, communicate with people, clients, partners, perform any action equally in terms of quality. When I create something, work or labor, I do not do worse or better, but I communicate worse or better with a partner or client depending on the motivation system I have.
Mostly people act as they act. At the same time, if you look at the long term, my motivation forms a certain strategy in me. But it is important that it is not primary in terms of making any decisions if I am acting as an employee. The primary thing is always the goal that I set.
For example, I set a goal that the most important thing for me is a high monthly salary. If I said so, it means I want to earn 5 million rubles every month. Or a person came and said they want to earn 200 thousand monthly and definitely have bonuses of another 500 thousand monthly. That is, the person sets for themselves, they say, this is the most important thing for them. Who is it most important for? This is the professional labor and activity that they engage in.
A person says: "It is important to me that I, as a programmer, write interesting code," "...that I, as a sales manager, deal with the sales of specific things," "...that I, as a videographer, work in cool locations with interesting people." That is, the person cares about the product. I have mentioned that for many people, there is a different goal and a different importance. There are cases when the wife or husband makes the decision for your employee or candidate. The wife comes and says: "You will choose this job." And depending on how the wife tells her husband (your employee) at home that the job is cool or bad, this person will work, perceive the job completely differently.
There is a primary goal, and then under it – motivation.
The Motivation of the CEO. An Example from My Experience
I'll give an example from my own experience.
I managed one company, quite large, I was the CEO. I did not own it. When I started working, the company had a goal to grow very significantly to increase its valuation. Growth and valuation were related to where, how, and in which market the company would receive it: within the framework of, for example, public placement or finding certain investors, and so on. Accordingly, the company had a goal to make the asset value incredibly large. If I started working and the company was worth conditionally 200 million dollars, the task was to make the company worth a billion. For me, the most important thing was the company's goal. My motivation system clearly matched this goal. How is that?
I had an option provided that the company began to be worth a certain amount of money, for example, a billion dollars. I earned, for example, 10, 20, or 30 million dollars. The company has a general goal: it should be worth a certain amount of money. The parameters of what this means are clearly fixed, then there is a trigger at which they work. The trigger works, and I personally get motivation from it. My personal goal is tied to the company's goal – to earn a lot of money.
The personal goal is not to bring happiness to customers, not to make my wife happy at home, not to like the job every day in terms of professional activity, not to conquer the world, not to have a cool team or a cool office, social package.
My goal was solely one – to earn a lot of money in this connection, and even more or less this figure was clear. Now it is called super correct motivation for the CEO. I was focused on this, went only in this range. You kind of entered the corridor, and it matches the company's corridor. And this rarely happens in terms of an employee and the company. There are always some differences, but here everything was very clear.
What is Goal Misalignment
A year and a half later, the company’s goal changes: it becomes important not how much it is worth, moreover, even if it is important, the parameters of calculating the cost change. Other parameters become important. For example, profit or the company’s significance in the market in terms of competition as a leader, ranking.
What happens to me at this moment?
When the company changes, its shareholders change the goal. Of course, without discussing it with the CEO. Are there situations when the goal is discussed with the CEO? Yes. But in this case, the owners changed the goal because there were many of them: 5, 6, or 7 different combinations, who agree among themselves, they are independent. When all the owners change it among themselves, I, as the CEO, an employee, receive the fact that the goal has changed. They start offering me completely different motivation systems.
What happens to me? I see that our paths have diverged. I go forward, I have tasks, plans. The owners impose absolutely new plans on you, but they have a completely different goal in their heads. And they, in fact, convey this goal to you, but do not synchronize it with you. If before we went in sync, now this goal comes in misalignment. What is "goal misalignment"?
Imagine there are owners who are out of sync with the CEO, and inside the owners, there is also their own goal misalignment. There are also a huge number of other top managers and teams, they have their own goals, and they are also out of sync. All this misalignment just starts exploding. It’s just such a volcano, everyone has a volcano inside.
Rarely, by the way, do people know how to negotiate or look in such situations normally. What do I do as a CEO and as a person? I begin to maximize my corridor with the company’s corridor in terms of goals. At some point, I understand that the most important thing for the company now is profit, and for me, it’s to make money. I start doing everything to make money, but my money-making is conditionally tied to the company’s goal.
Firstly, the company’s goal is ephemeral, actually unclear: it seems to need to make money, and the company should be worth something, but also a bunch of shareholders who can’t agree among themselves. In this situation, the only thing I can do is focus and clearly hear from myself that I, as a CEO, need to make money. I have principles on which my activity is based: to be honest, to remember the clients, it is important for my team to make money. And for the team, everything has changed! For many, everything has changed. There are also clients, partners, contractors on whom all this affects.
The Importance of Understanding Employees' Goals. On the Mistakes of Company Owners
I focus on my goal and begin to align motivation as much as possible and negotiate, based on the personal goal, understanding that it will not coincide with the company’s goal until the end – this is impossible. This allowed me to make a plus for the company, fulfill its task and make a plus for myself.
It’s bad that the owners and shareholders didn’t hear and didn’t know, didn’t feel, actually didn’t want to know.
For many owners, the people who work inside are something: apples, kettles, tables, they see it as material. And this is a huge mistake because those whom we hire to our team (it doesn’t matter if it’s a CEO, COO, marketing director, sales director, technical director, HR director, finance director) determine our life as a business owner. Only if you don’t have 18 businesses, in such situations, there’s a different story at the end.
First and foremost, always remember that you need to understand the goals of the person working for you: listen to them a bit, hear them out, try to synchronize with them instead of just defending your own interests. Motivation affects how a person will work, how they will act and plan.
About Employees' and Owners' Incomes
I won't go into how unequal the social and business world is. There are many teams where business owners talk about caring for people and bringing benefits. Meanwhile, they can earn millions and billions while their employees earn much less. That's their right. But you need to clearly understand: if you're a business owner earning a million dollars in net profit monthly, and your director, who works for you, earns a thousand dollars, that director likely has a mindset about thousands, not millions. The likelihood of having a director who earns a thousand dollars but thinks about millions is very small. But it happens.
There are people capable of thinking big even if they don't earn much: the scale of thinking and internal scale are not always directly tied to money. But here, the energy exchange is strange, there's some dishonesty. And as a business owner, you'll often lose because of this. People are afraid to share.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked someone an interesting question. I asked what he would prefer: to own 100% of a company making a million dollars a year, or own 30% of a company making 100 million dollars a year? He said, "Of course, own 100%." I said, "Wait a minute, you own 100% - you earn a million. Here, you own 30% - you earn 30 million." He agreed. I said, "So you're earning 30 times more, and theoretically working less because you have less responsibility. Here, you're responsible for a million dollars alone, everything depends on you, you're the sole owner. You’re responsible for this business. But here you have 30%, not even a majority share (maybe a majority if there are 50 other partners).
But if there's another partner with 70%, it's great: less responsibility, less significance, less of everything, and the earnings are 30 times more. It's super. You can even choose what to do." The guy looks at me, he's out of sync because ownership and significance matter to him. He says, "Well yes, Sasha, I know it's better to own 1% of Apple than 100% of this small business." I ask, what 1% of Apple is he talking about? You'll never own 1% of Apple because 1% of Apple is 30 billion dollars. You don't have to work at all if you own 1% of Apple. Not only does it cost that much, but it also generates profit. The guy just can't reconcile and count these parameters, make normal, adequate, calm, honest conclusions. He doesn't have this connection.
About Silicon Valley, Russia's GDP, and Business Management
A friend of mine lives in Spain, she says, "You live in Silicon Valley, you have such expensive housing, high taxes." She has four kids, I have four kids. I say, "You live in Spain, do you pay for your kids' school?" She says the private school costs about one and a half or two thousand dollars. If you multiply that by four kids, it's eight thousand dollars. But because I live in the right place, with a good ZIP code, yes, the house is more expensive than in Spain, and taxes are higher. But my kids go to the best American schools for free. She asks, "So you pay for insurance in America, I pay less for insurance in Spain, but I pay for school, and you don't?"
It's the same in business. There are many factors in terms of interacting with people, agreements. Look inside yourself. As a business owner, do you understand that other people, partners, and strong team members deserve to earn good money because you grow because of it, your business grows? It becomes efficient and generates a lot of money. Or how much can you not earn now, even if you're earning well. You might have lost a huge market because you didn't agree on a salary with someone.
Mistakes in Motivating Employees and Top Managers. From My Experience
I've been in business and professional activities, in tech business, in education, in different businesses (now I have over 20 directions) for 20 years. That's how my life turned out, and I'm incredibly happy and grateful for it. It gives me such confidence that I had my own businesses, or I was an owner somewhere, both as a majority and minority owner. At the same time, I was often in a management role, taking on roles like director, CEO, whether I owned the business or not. I just had a salary, and I was very calm about it. You can run your business or be employed. It's all incredibly interesting in life.
I worked as the CEO of Megaplan. In 2012, I got an offer to become a partner at Business Youth. Business Youth was a small company making $200,000 a year. In 2023, we made $20 million. I joined as a partner, we had three partners, each with a third. When I was managing Megaplan, I didn't even have an option. I led the deal and sold it to 1C. They attracted funds from Baring Vostok Capital, and I, as the CEO, got nothing.
Many ask me where the option was. Where should it have been? "It's a tech company, task manager, cloud service. You grew it from 10,000 clients to 120,000." I say, we didn't agree on that: I had a salary and a bonus. The salary was 7 or 8 thousand dollars, and the bonus was about the same monthly. Why did I leave? They asked me. I said I had a chance to earn 200 thousand dollars in 3 months because I signed a declaration to buy a car for 200 thousand dollars (which I did in June 2011). But the goal was to make a million dollars, and I wouldn't make it here. They said, "Few people make big money." The CEO of 1C said I asked for a big salary. I felt very strange at that moment.
Disconnection in Motivation. How to Calculate What to Pay
There was a company worth several tens of millions of dollars. When I was selling it, as the CEO, I did all the budgets and plans. We planned for it to be worth half a billion dollars in 5 years, by 2017. As the CEO, I said, "Can we set up the right motivation system? Pay a good salary and give a super bonus depending on the plan. Share the super bonus with me." Again, can you pay the CEO 20 million dollars if the company will be worth half a billion? If we grow, for example, to half a billion, grow plus 480. Can we give 20 of those 480 to the CEO? I can give 40 if that happens. Some say you can't. Why give him 20 million if he makes 170 thousand dollars a year? Or 200 thousand a year? Why give him 20 million? He makes 200, that's 1% of 20. Why? Well, you can give another 200, for example.
The paradox wasn't in the bonus to be paid. The paradox was in the salary. Let's pay a salary not 7 thousand dollars, but 10 thousand dollars, or pay not 10 thousand dollars, but 12 thousand dollars. The paradox was in the salary, it was big. What do we measure with? Our strange state, how much I can pay another person. As a business owner, I don't spend money, for example. Maybe I don't know how to spend. Or the business owner never worked for hire, never earned money. And I always had people who earned little money, even if I, as the business owner, earned a lot. Or I worked somewhere: director, earned 3 thousand dollars and think, why should I pay him 10 thousand dollars? And there's a strong disconnect.
An employee comes to you, you don't want to pay them because you don't know or don't deserve it, or can't, or don't understand how to earn that much money. You have a disconnect. Ego eats up money that doesn't even exist yet - some future options or bonuses. Or some small, tiny piece of this salary or knowledge. Especially when people like that are around and talk. It's very funny, and at the same time, it makes you want to cry.
About Business Youth
Back in 2012, I was completely open to negotiating and moving forward with different people. When I joined "Business Youth," I was stepping into the unknown: it was a company located on Tverskaya, on the seventh or eighth floor of a regular building. They rented an apartment there, people were walking around in slippers. There were 15 employees, and nothing was organized. The company had a small monthly revenue. But they didn't just show me a carrot. They told me there was an entire garden that would be mine if I joined them as a partner, and we would make money together. And that's exactly what happened.
The people, the partners, were incredibly open that year, and I was able to hear them. Big thanks to myself for being able to hear and accept them. Everyone around me was saying I was making an absolute mistake. I was managing a market leader, making super partnerships, huge ones. We were leaders at all the exhibitions, performing everywhere, in the corporate segment. And then who are these guys? Some small educational company doing something, and at that time, I didn't have big money requests. I didn't know how to make big money, I didn't know what it was. I didn't feel or see it. So, at that time, it was easy to talk and negotiate.
Of course, the "Megaplan" company never became worth half a billion dollars. I'm not saying I would have led it there. Everyone will draw their own conclusions.
Advice for Business Owners
The point of these examples is not to blame anyone, because a business owner has the total right to do whatever they want, as long as it's within the law. Even if it's not within the principles of your life, spiritual life principles, or the principles of humanity's movement. It doesn't mean I'll work with such people. It doesn't mean everyone will work with me. But the business owner has the right to do whatever they want. They can hire all 100 people for free and say you'll work because you're working with me – that's their right.
I now recommend you as a business owner or as a manager, or as a future business owner to look inside yourself, where you can make different decisions regarding the team to scale up. Remove your ego, desires, circumstances, endless proofs of something, and focus on the fact that you want to scale up, you want to grow. You know that an incredible growth point is the proper motivation of your employees, team, the ability to hire the right people.