Future-Proofing Your Business: Real-Life Strategies to Prepare Your Business for Tomorrow, Today

Chapter 9. The Rewards of Rewards

"The first lesson for me was to stop thinking like a leader and business owner and start remembering what it was like to be a staff member myself."

With vision and strategy in place and a clear understanding of your position as a leader, you've established a great platform for the way you develop real and meaningful relationships with your team. Now it's time to work out how to have them help you guide the business into the future.

Over the years, I've had the chance to lead a number of great teams of people. One of the most significant lessons I've learned was that even after I was able to lead these individuals properly, my job of keeping them engaged was far from done. The next cornerstone to getting the most from them in the workplace was to introduce some kind of reward.

Ten years ago, it was perfectly acceptable to say things like, "I pay my staff, so I expect a fair day's work out of them in return." Nowadays, that just doesn't wash—particularly when you are working with members of Generation Y.

It took me many years of trial and error before I got a workable, manageable, and believable staff reward system in place in our companies. And even then I wasn't sure if it was right. However, it was the best we could come up with. The cornerstone of my success with this approach was for me to openly and honestly share everything about the business with the employees.

The following are some of the highs, lows, and total screwups I had in my journey to ...