Sense or no sense

Years ago, I worked for a very insightful man who was president and CEO of our company. When we were doing performance evaluations, the employee’s intelligence and academic qualifications would frequently be raised in the evaluation process. The president would brush these attributes aside and ask, is Tom or Carol “maze bright?” Many people had never heard the term and were at a loss to respond. The term inferred whether or not people can use common sense to work themselves out of difficult and complex situations.

Over the years, it has amazed me to find how many very bright and intelligent people frequently exhibit little tendency to be maze bright or to use common sense.

No Sense

During the last few weeks, I got a call from a colleague expressing his frustration with a mutual client of ours. Apparently, the client was planning to move a bright young woman, (let’s call her Chris) to Toronto from New York. They were doing this so she could follow her partner, who had just received a promotional move to Toronto, not because they needed her to relocate for business purposes.

The issue at hand was how much compensation Chris would get. The manager of human resources in New York looked up the relative cost of living between the two cities and came to the conclusion that New York had a higher cost of living than Toronto. It seemed to her the natural thing to do was to see that Chris did not receive the same salary in Canada as she did in New York. Chris’s salary should be reduced by the percentage that New York’s cost of living exceeded Toronto’s.

When the CEO heard about this move, he expressed a completely different approach. He decided that Chris’s U.S. salary would be converted from U.S. dollars to Canadian dollars, to which my colleague was flabbergasted since this meant a 40% increase in income for Chris.

The Result of Not Using Common Sense?

None of the parties to this tale displayed any tendency of being maze bright. The HR manager really had no idea what the job was worth in Toronto. She had not compared what the organization was paying other employees for similar work. The CEO did not take into account the fact that converting Chris’s salary into Canadian dollars would give her a salary that was much higher than other employees in more senior positions.

My colleague who was so surprised at Chris getting a 40% increase in income as it didn’t reflect an appropriate salary for the position.

He was only amazed by the absolute dollar increase.

The result of this ill-thought out action may likely be that current employees in the Toronto office will learn of Chris’s salary and will be miffed. Local management will be faced with the option of raising their salaries or losing the staff.

These problems are the result of the decision makers not using common sense, not conducting a study to determine what Chris’s position is worth and not conferring with local management.

Maze Bright and Using Common Sense

Many readers of this article will raise the flag of saying that it is irrelevant to their situation. They don’t have an American office and they don’t bring personnel in from the U.S. so what is the point of the story.

The point is that when making compensation, promotion or pricing decisions, don’t make a conclusion without facts. Don’t make decisions without considering the consequences and ramifications of your actions. In the long run, it is better to take an extra hour, day or even week and get the proper data than to give a knee jerk response.