Around two
years ago, we took an intern who I took on as my “godson.” One of the reasons
for why I took him on as a “godson” was the fact that I had sympathy for him.
He’s a son from a well to do family trying to prove himself on his own merits.
Whilst I remain
very fond of him, there was an area that irked me – namely the fact that he was
unable to perform simple office task and the complaints were ending up on my
door. I tried to counsel him and then I asked him “What do you think interns do?”
His reply was “Go to events and meet big shots.”
His response
irked me and when I mentioned my irritation to one of my colleagues, he
actually told me was wrong to get irked. His point was “interns these days have
expectations.”
I was given a
reminder of this event years ago when I watched snippets of the senate confirmation
of the potential US Ambassador to Singapore, Dr. Ajani Sinha. The news media made
mincemeat of the fact that Dr. Sinha was vastly out of his depth and didn’t
know the intricacies of the job. The finale of this humiliation of Dr. Sinha
came when senator Tammy Duckworth told him, “You think… you’re going to live a
nice life in Singapore, but what we need is someone who’s going to actually do
the work.” More on the exchange can be found at;
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrxd7d78r0o
Let’s look at
the basic definition of a job. At its most basic, a job is a task or a series
of task which are performed for a certain period in return for an exchange of
money. This is true regardless of whether you are a ditch digger or the CEO of
a multi-billion-dollar company. So, if you look at this basic definition of a
job, the most basic task of the “hiring” process is to find out if you can do
the work required.
Now, this is
generally clear at the most basic end of the market. If you’re going to work as
a ditch digger, your employer will simply want to ensure that you are a
physically strong enough to dig for certain number of hours every day for say a
month. The screening process becomes more complicated along with the job
requirements. For example, if you need a machine operator, you need someone who
can operate the machine. Then, if you need someone to lead a team of machine operators,
you need to check that the said candidates are not only able to operate the machine
but also lead other machine operators. I take my national service training for
the artillery. First, I had to go through a “basic gunner” course. This was
relatively simple, we had to learn how to operate a 155 Gun Howitzer. Then, we
had to go through “specialist” course, which involved not just learning how the
Gun Howitzer worked but how it operated on the larger scale of things.
Whilst that’s relatively
simple on a basic level because you’re essentially trying to fill a cog in a machine.
It becomes a bit more complicated when you’re hiring for the top positions. The
complication comes down to this – the higher up you go, you’ll tend to find
that only one skill is required – leadership.
However, the
problem with “leadership” is that it’s a very subjective term. What defines a “competent”
leader can mean many things depending on who’s asking. In the military it
usually means someone who can plan military campaigns. In a
“non-profit” it could mean the person who raises and in a commercial enterprise
it usually means bringing in the most profit and raising share prices in the name
of shareholder value.
Then, there’s
the fact that leadership, unlike most jobs where you’re required to do one or
two task, leadership inevitably means overseeing many people doing many tasks.
Hence, the old army joke about why the person at the top is called a “general.”
The answer being because he (they usually are) has wide general knowledge about
many things but they’re not experts on any particular subject matter.
Thanks to this
complexity, leadership is often very well rewarded. This includes things like
houses, cars, high salaries and in corporate America – stock options. In the private
sector this usually comes in the shape of a lot of money and in the public
sector, this usually comes with a lot of perks.
The rewards
that leaders receive are inevitably very attractive. I think of the usual topic
of “minister’s salaries” in Singapore, where the average minister gets paid
around $100,000 a month. Who wouldn’t be attracted to this type of salary? Or let’s
look at the compensation of many American CEOs, which consist of “stock options”
which can be the region of millions a year. The argument made is that you need
to “attract” talent.
There is,
however, one slight problem. When rewards become so attractive, they become a separate
focus. In some ways, the rewards become focus and the job becomes an inconvenience
– a point raised about Singapore Armed Forces Scholars in the book “Defending
the Lion City,” which argued that there was a danger of the SAF’s scholars
passing time in the military on way to very lucrative civilian careers rather
than treating the work of being in the military as the main focus.
While it’s
understandable why people would be attracted to task with great rewards, the rewards
come with a price – namely the job and doing the work. Too many of us forget
that work needs to be done and it needs to be done at a certain standard. Unfortunately,
this is an area where board rooms and HR departments struggle with. How do you
ensure that the person’s main focus is on the work?
One of the most
obvious answers is to make payment commensurate with competence. However, there’s
a problem. How do you demonstrate and measure competence. As often said, the
reality is that the job doesn’t go to the best person but the person who sell
his or herself best.
The challenge
for HR professionals is inevitably how does one reward those who genuinely does
the work rather than the people who only expect a cushy life from the job.
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