Education, training, pay? Bah, you're all off-track here.

It's simple, really. 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people. The rest of the dolts just get in the way.

Companies would be far better off trying to identify the key 10%, then continue to operate under the delusion that everyone can contribute equally or to their pay grade. Problem is the 90% of dolts usually comprise 100% of HR.....

Ciao, all the big companies are hiring here. We just hired someone who starts Monday for a junior level position. They are hiring so much here that they are sponsoring meet-and-greets to try and lure candidates. The local newspaper just ran a story saying that employment for software developers and systems engineers had increased 10-15% over last year (can't remember the exact number). My co-worker who got a better job went to a career festival in the convention center. Lots of the local people seem to be using Dice.com for IT jobs. We are trying to replace a senior network engineer right now and I know the salary is in the 6 figures. If you can't find what you're looking for on Dice, call the companies directly. I can help you find some of the better employers in the area depending on what work you are looking for. I'm not a short timer though; I stay with companies for a long time (5+ years) so I'm less familiar than some others about how it is working at all the different places around here.

Well that is true. When I ran my dept id throw money at the good FTEs

Across the board 2% raise no bonus **** that. Of course you have to make the business case, but that was always easy for the good ones. Non officially logged PTO sure go take care of your ****. No worries

To be honest though the average ones got the std bump.

Sent you a dm since I'm only green star and heading towards my limit.

Drhooves:

Quote:

It's simple, really. 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people. The rest of the dolts just get in the way.

Hahahahaha I seriously think you're onto something there.....I'm not kidding.

Front and center would be working in the financial markets.......

Drhooves: "It's simple, really. 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people. The rest of the dolts just get in the way."

That simple fact took me YEARS to work out and then take advantage of.
That's my model in a nut shell.

Ciao: unfortunately sometimes those dolts run businesses too and are unreasonable bosses.

So, with the good Dr’s insight how could things be different?

Without the 90% of dolts, the costs of the business crashes thru the floor- there's lots of money in most operations- almost everything you try has good margins in it.

Costs drop when business does not have to support the wage of 90% of the staff (my experience is staff levels go down by 60-70%) nor give them a place to work, nor heat and light them. Nor undo the problems they cause.

The 10%ers are also much more effective with their time so the takt time of each job significantly reduces and this increases the number of jobs that the fixed costs are distributed over. Also, purchasing is tighter- more accurate, more appropriate and more timely, this reduces the unexpected line stops.
The result is quicker delivery, higher quality and higher profits AND less capital employed in the operation. The business and their customers are happy.

Is 10% a natural number- or is it something to do with education?
I don’t know, but I see the characteristics of the 10%ers in lots of little kids, but not so much in later life. Is this a result of them growing up or is it because of their education?

My approach is to carry a “P&L account” and “Balance Sheet” on each person in the business; I can prove that it’s true that the 10%ers are 3 or 4 times more productive and have need NO need for supervision.

A big chunk of reorganisation and some bespoke IT and ALL the admin/management tasks can be automated and only constitute a small burden on the 10%ers.

In my experience if you are one of the 10%ers this model is like nirvana; a workplace where you are rewarded for the value you add not just what’s left over after the dolts have taken their “share”. And a workplace where you are free to pursue your interests, have capital to do so and don't have anyone telling you what to do or when to do it.

And the workplace is FULL of 10%ers … a "dolt free zone", that’s a reward in itself.

On the other hand, if you are one of the dolts you are gonna be very negative about it and use every reason you can think of to claim it won’t and can’t work.

….Only, it does work- and really well.

The dolts are fighting for their free place at the trough, they desperately don’t want to be measured. And they do know the game, they know they need to be carried- they think it’s a clever scam that will go on forever.

I’ve talked about why it’s good for the business, but what about the 10%ers themselves?

All this great productivity means there is a BIG chunk of money going into the P&L accounts of the 10%ers from their customers and, after all their costs are accounted for, there is a big chunk left over.

They get 20% of their profits as a bonus and a further 20% of their profits for “investment”. This investment cash is not theirs to take home, but risk capital they get to employ in any direction they have an interest in- in order to generate a return.

We are teaching them to be entrepreneurs, we are teaching them the skills they will need so that they don’t have to work for anyone else ever again.

And at the same time they are achieving really high incomes for the sector ($60-100kpa). With every new skill they learn they become that little bit more independent.

One day they will have all the skills they need to be completely independent and run businesses of their own- and start one with very low risk of failure.

We encourage them to do that, we will even support them with seed capital (we only care about low risk return on our capital).

They only stay in our business if the deal is sweet enough, and they do stay.


“You can’t herd cats” and you can’t herd the 10%ers, you can’t make them do anything, they have all the choices in the world. All you can offer them is a sweet deal.


You can offer the dolts a fair deal but it’s never enough for them.


Making work pay for those who do it, that’s my project.

Drhooves wrote..

It's simple, really. 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people. The rest of the dolts just get in the way

Or, as a former colleague asked more than once: "Why do we spend so much time supporting the support groups?"

Management in many businesses have little to no clue what their tech employees actually do. Therefore they can't match that up with competitive pay, until they're squeezed by a shortage to support a key project.

And when dumb ass Chicago MBA management is squeezed by a shortage, they'll bring offshore "experience" onto the project, "thinking" that it'll get **** done, and cheaply. Ask me how I know.

Quote:

Is 10% a natural number- or is it something to do with education?

It's called the Pareto Principle. It applies to almost everything.

Edit to explain: 20% of the population is responsible for about 80% of the effect of something.

I was on a project that had 30 clueless H1Bs writing simple SQL to mine data. I wrote SQL to create a few views and UDFs to replace almost all of them. Large companies like to throw people and money at problems instead of a few smart creative people.

I'm part of the 90%...! Feel like, Navin R. Johnson - The phone books here!!