>He told his entire team, "Tell me how much money you want. I will tell you what you need to accomplish to get it."
This is my dream manager. I've never had a manager ask what they could do for me and actually mean it.
This is my dream manager. I've never had a manager ask what they could do for me and actually mean it.
(Apologies to him if I have misrepresented his ideas -- taken from a discussion I had with him where I asked him exactly this). Anyway, he told me that many people often were quite happy with a lower salary expectation once they understood what was required of the higher salary expectation. Also "I'll tell you what you have to do" doesn't necessarily mean that the person will succeed. If you want the bigger salary you are going to have to choose the harder projects. So it might be "Take this failing project and turn it around. Hmm... yes I know it's a piece of crap legacy app that nobody else wants to touch. Find a way to make it work and I will find a way to get your raise." A lot of people will say, "Oh. No thanks. I'd rather work with the new shiny greenfield project. It's a lot easier and a lot more fun." His approach was to let people self select for their level of performance. And if someone took the gnarly legacy problem and failed miserably, then he would gently (?) suggest that they focus on easier problems until they have built up their skills.
The other flip side is the risk--if you want to step up to the plate, at a certain level you need to understand that the stakes are such that if you fail, you likely need to leave or you'll be fired/asked to leave.
Not everyone wants that level of responsibility or risk. In my job I oversee one of the biggest sources of spend in the company (ad spend) and am responsible for driving a large part of our growth. If I don't do my job well that has company-wide implications that are present in my mind literally every day. That's a level of ever-present stress that many people don't want.