04/01/2025

Becoming a Leader

Is “killing your old self” a good idea?

Earlier in his career, when John Donovan [the former CEO of AT&T Communications] was a partner at a big consulting firm, his CEO at the time introduced a new incentive system for how people would divide commissions based on their specific contributions to landing new business. The goal was to train a spotlight on individual accountability and thereby increase productivity. Instead, it created a system in which people spent an inordinate amount of time on gaming the system to maximize their share of the commission pie.

"It was a noble impulse," Donovan said. "But it created this adverse behavior where everybody wanted to show up at every meeting."

For Donovan, who had grown up with ten siblings and had been captain of his hockey team during high school, the new approach cut against some of his core beliefs about teamwork. So, even though he was entitled to a percentage of much of the work that he helped land for the firm, he decided to opt out of the new system. When people were tallying percentages, he would always say the same thing: "Put me down for zero."

Please select this link to read the complete article from Big Think.