Sometimes the Road Less Traveled Leads to a Band of Flying Monkeys

Sometimes the Road Less Traveled leads to a Band of Flying Monkeys

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We all get bored.
Most of us fill that boredom by exploring something new. Often this
leads to an exciting new restaurant, but sometimes it means a terrible
meal. Sometimes this means meeting new friends, other times it means
getting stuck at a colleague's holiday party listening to stories about
office politics and sick children. In my experience, very few
compensation professionals are also extreme sports fanatics. I seldom
speak to someone in our industry who has recently snowboarded off a
cliff or free-dived with white sharks.

I bring this up because
we are responsible for a huge portion of our companies' success. It
surprises me how often professionals make a decision to follow a new
path without first calculating to possibility of the path ending in a
band of flying monkeys, rather than a better solution.

Are you following the road less traveled in the spirit of Robert Frost or Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz?

I
ask because I still see a lot of compensation professionals acting
against their nature when it comes to new programs. When an old plan is
not working as well as planned, many choose to roll out a new program.
This is done instead of enhancing the features and communication around
an older plan. While the problems may be driven by failures in the
design of the old plan, it is just as likely they are caused by poor
utilization of available plan features or poor communication of the
same.

Given our increasing responsibilities and shrinking staff
sizes, rolling out a new plan efficiently is often beyond our
capabilities.  We frequently discover that completion is impossible when
we are already well down the "new plan" road, when turning back is no
longer an option. This results in abandonment or, worse, partial
roll-out of the new plan.  It can also mean that your old plan may
still, by necessity, be your ongoing solution.

This year, explore
a quick trip down the future of your current program path and ask
yourself if you can get where you need to go without starting all over.
You may find that you have simply been doing things by rote when a burst
of new energy is all that is needed to reach your destination.

Remember
that although Dorothy finally got where she was going, the journey was
both arduous and terrifying.  We seldom have the luxury (or desire) of
putting our employers and employees through a truly frightening
experience. Dorothy had the distinct advantage of an author who could
ensure that her story had a “Hollywood” ending. We generally drive the
ending of our stories and are held professionally accountable for their
success or failure.

Take a few days before 2011 disappears to
document the reasons for the success or failure of your current (or
recent) compensation plans. Be brutally honest about whether you and
your staff could have done anything to have made them more successful.

Might I recommend doing those things, before you start down another unknown path?

Dan Walter is the President and CEO of Performensation
an independent compensation consultant focused on the needs of small
and mid-sized public and private companies. Dan’s unique perspective and
expertise includes equity compensation, executive compensation,
performance-based pay and talent management issues. Dan is a co-author
of “The Decision Makers Guide to Equity Compensation” , “If I’d Only Known That” and  “Beyond Stock Options.” Dan is on the board of the National Center for Employee Ownership, a partner in the ShareComp virtual conferences and the founder of Equity Compensation Experts
a free networking group. Dan is frequently requested as a dynamic and
humorous speaker covering compensation and motivation topics. Connect
with him on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter @Performensation and @SayOnPay