Monday, June 27, 2016

Not Everything Can Be on the Clock: Five Minutes and Knowing Where to Tap


An international brand hired a songwriter to come up with a theme song. After signing the contract, the man went back to his lonely writer’s garret and came up with the song. Took him all of five minutes. The company was not happy and did not want to pay him their agreed upon price. It wasn’t that they didn’t like the song. Oh, no. You see, the songwriter was dealing with those with an employee mindset.

These employees could not understand how it was he could come up with a song in five minutes. They thought it had to be a retread or old over anything but brand new and written just for them. Did the song work? The employees agreed that it did. So the songwriter explained that they only saw the five minutes but clearly and thoroughly missed the thirty years that came before wherein he learned and came to an understanding and knowing of what wouldn’t work.
Here’s another example of employee mindset. A ship’s engine wouldn’t start. No one could fix it. They brought in a consultant. After looking over the engine, he pulls out a small hammer, taps something, and voilá, the engine works. Balking at his bill, they ask for a breakdown of his fees. His new invoice simply said “Tapping with hammer: $2. Knowing where to tap: $9,998.”

What do these two stories have in common? First, that most people don’t appreciate and often undervalue accumulated knowledge and the benefit to time-savings that can bring. Second, that most people have an hourly-employee mindset.
The employee mindset says only when a clock is punched does work begin. Most employees live by the credo when the cat’s away the mice will play. Those with employee mindsets do not own companies. Always equating physical presence and effort to deserved compensation, those with the employee mindset complain about anybody making more money than them — especially if that anybody barely breaks a sweat.

What employee-mindset folks fail to recognize — and frankly never will — is that those who do not punch clocks are paid to take their wide-ranging knowledge and experience and apply it thereby ensuring those with the employee mindset have a clock to punch. Even when sunning on the beach, these people never stop thinking. They never stop with this then that and what if scenarios. They are always, without promise of real-time compensation — that is, they aren’t on the clock — studying and learning so that, when confronted with a thorny problem or new challenge, they know where not to drill, they know what not to tap, they know what not to sing.

Once you know what doesn’t work, then the options for what does work become much clearer, and problem-solving progress is made much faster. Employees basically have a socialist mindset. They do not understand that anything deserves a higher compensation than they do, and believe that all compensation should be equal. Socialists and employees do not understand why, nor do they understand how, to look to the future. All they know how to do is whine about now. But that thinking does not grow a business nor make it strong. Socialists and employees also do not understand this:
Invoice for Tapping: $2, and knowing where to tap: $9,998.
Now, subtract: Paying for 100% of Fed and State income taxes, insurance, office space, travel, coffee and pot, the right hammers, and more.

Socialists and employees are provided these things. They never think about who is actually paying for it.

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