In 2002 I wrote an article entitled The New Rules of Mentoring for The Wall Street Journal. Nine years later the Millennials have changed the playing field and now we have “the newer rules of mentoring”.

The Millennial Generation, born between 1977 and 1998, are the latest generation to enter the workplace. They are 75 million strong in size and are characterized as being self-confident, focused on learning and moving up quickly, team-oriented, well networked, technologically savvy, and desirous of continual feedback.

Millennials have one other thing in common: no matter how smart and confident they are, because they are new to the professional workplace, they need and want mentoring. In addition, the timeline for leadership development is ramping up. Millennials may be thrust into leadership roles faster than any other leaders in the last thirty years, as there are not nearly enough Gen X workers to fill the ranks of the departing Baby Boomers. The good news is that they want to be leaders.

Traditional mentoring, long renowned for its success is developing leaders, is typically a relationship between someone more experienced with someone less experienced. “Mentoring,” says author Gordon Shea, “is a fundamental form of human development where one person invests time, energy and personal know-how in assisting the growth and ability of another person.”

According to Bob Canalosi, chief learning officer of General Electric Health Care, one of the top leadership competencies needed in the 2020 workplace is to be a “legendary builder of people and teams.” Canalosi explains this as “coaching and mentoring both face-to-face and virtually; challenging people to achieve more than they believed they could.” Marshall Goldsmith, leading executive educator and coach, also predicts that a top new competency for leaders of the future is “sharing leadership.”

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One of the biggest challenges for businesses today is integrating the Millennials or Gen Y twenty-somethings into a Baby Boomer culture. They are the newest generation to enter the labor market, arriving with their distinct ideas about what they expect from their jobs. They are our future leaders and our next generation of revenue-generators. So who are the Millennials and how do we manage their expectations while maintaining high performing organizations?

The Millennial Generation was born between 1977 and 1998. They are 75 million strong in size and were raised by “helicopter parents”, who doted on them, giving them an ample supply of attention and validation. Because they were heralded with high expectations, Millennials tend to display an abundance of self-confidence and believe they are highly valuable to any organization from day one. They are extremely focused on developing themselves and thrive on learning new job skills, always setting new challenges to achieve. They are also the “can do” generation, never worrying about failure, for they see themselves as running the world and work environments.

Unlike other generations, the Millennials are overly connected to their parents. As they move through their twenties, they still speak to their parents frequently and turn to their parents for personal and career advice. Some are still even living at home, not uncomfortable with the arrangement. Organizations must remember the parent involvement factor when dealing with this group. These parents are still micro-managing their children’s careers and personal lives.

When it comes to work life balance, Gen Y is not willing to give up their lifestyle for a career. They have traveled extensively and value having flexibility in their daily lives.

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Leaders need to ignore the articles that make generalizations about Generation-Y and the other generations within the current workforce. The articles I refer to use research and surveys in making generalizations about Gen-Y, and seem to focus the perceived shortcomings in the younger generations. The majority of the articles suggest that Gen-Y is prone to entitlement, outspoken, not able or willing to focus, and dislikes criticism. Leaders must look past these articles if they are to remain effective as leaders.

The irony is that I have met and worked with many Boomers and Gen-Xers who share the same qualities as Gen Y. I have observed plenty of entitlement in Boomers and Gen-Xers who are living in their own reality of status quo. Many of them are unwilling to listen to new ideas, much less challenge existing comfort zones. And they do not take criticism very well.

Let me offer a blunt and harsh reality that we should keep in mind. The vast majority of corporate leaders that brought us to the financial crisis a few years ago were Boomers. Bernie Madoff was a Boomer. Some of our country’s political leaders that have been recently found guilty of ethics violations and breaking laws were Boomers. Those CEOs of fallen organizations, the same CEOs who were earning huge salaries and benefited from golden parachutes as their organizations collapsed, were Boomers.

Another reality: the ADD dysfunction is not something that only affects Gen-Yers, as I have read often enough. I’ve worked with many Boomer executives who were not able to focus on any one thing for more than 2 minutes. Perhaps modern society is just more educated on recognizing the indicators of ADD. But there seems to be plenty of ADD to go around for all generations.

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Purpose of Team Building

Team building is necessary to support change in organizations. It is a collaborative effort between the employees who will carry out change initiatives and the managers and executives who provide leadership, guidance and vision for the proposed change.Team building is conducted for a number of reasons in organizations. It serves many purposes such as:

• Improve communications
• Motivation
• Creating a shared vision
• Goal setting
• Establishing rules and procedures
• Identifying strengths and weaknesses and how to overcome them
• Improve productivity
• Practice collaboration

Despite the intent behind team building, the effort is meaningless unless it is fully understood.Team building is often mis-characterized and leaders in organizations are only partially successful in implementing it. The reason is there are actually two objectives to team building:

1. The attitude or sense of teamwork – camaraderie and collaboration. This is the popular definition for team building. Although necessary, it does nothing more than to establish that everyone who is a member of a team is friendly and gets along with one another.
2. The formation of people based on skills and ability aligned with an organizations business objectives. This is the more measurable form of team building based on defined goals linked to specific people in an organization who can carry out the tasks to create real change

Team building to support change in organizations can happen as long as there is purpose and objectives illustrated here are built in it.

How a Business Process Management Consultant Can Help With Team Building

Business process management (BPM) consultants can help executives and managers build teams in organization in a number of ways once a team is established.

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Forget what you heard about “being one of the boys,” “having it all,” and “going for the jugular.” Here is how real women get ahead.

Get In Line

According to Catalyst’s 2002 Census of Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners, women fill less than ten percent of line positions held by corporate officers and just 5.2% of top earners at Fortune 500 companies are women. Is there a correlation? Absolutely. Half of women executives and 68% of CEOs say that lack of significant line experience “holds women back” (Catalyst, Women in U.S. Corporate Leadership, 2003).

Knowing that line experience is critical, get prepared. Study financial management, become an expert in a functional area such as strategic planning, manufacturing, marketing or sales, serve on a nonprofit or advisory board and, the minute the opportunity arises, take a position with profit and loss responsibility.

Learning about the financials doesn’t happen overnight.  When Margaret Morford, 50, of
Brentwood, Tennessee, was Vice President of Human Resources for a large distribution company, she recalls, “I took the same finance for non-financial managers course three times until I got it. I used that financial knowledge to demonstrate Human Resources’ impact to the bottom line.  Once I started speaking in numbers, the senior managers in my peer group began to view Human Resources as a business partner rather than an administrative drain on revenues.”

Remember Who You Are

In 2005, The Center for Work/Life Policy asked women what they want in the workplace. Seventy-nine percent of women said “the freedom to be myself at work.” Ask a man if he desires to “be himself at work,” and you will probably get the same glassy stare I got when I asked my husband that question.

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If you want to build loyalty for you and your organization, your products and your goals, you have to constantly refine your leadership talents. Whether you’re working at the retail, distribution or manufacturing level; the development of a successful team means you must bring forth the extra effort and support required today to compete in a tough, aggressive, ruthless market. Examining, evaluating, improving your skills is a tough, dirty job.

For example, after three months of developing and discussing a special group of prospects in your best salesperson’s territory, they still haven’t been contacted–even though everyone agrees that the goal for the quarter is to expand new business.

What do you do?
More likely than not, you lay down the law …tell the salesperson that by the end of the week, you want all of those prospects contacted and a report on your desk. On Friday afternoon, your salesperson turns in his/her report and has opened three new accounts. The job was done…it was done on time.   But was it good leadership? Some will say yes, because sometimes the end justifies the means. Others would contend that it wasn’t good leadership because results were achieved in an undesirable manner. Successful leadership would have resulted in the salesperson wanting to do the job at hand to support the entire team, rather than being forced to do it.

So is there a “right” kind of leadership?
It’s not “right” to take over responsibility that should properly be assumed by another member of your organization.  When you do that, you lower his or her self-esteem. It’s not “right” to issue edicts.  The total scope of the program should be discussed with the individual involved.

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Over the past 10 years we’ve studied the formation of more than 50 companies in the PC/CE/communications content arena.  We’ve also talked with the heads of several venture capital organizations about the subject.                    

We realize this isn’t startling that 90 percent of them were started by engineers,  beyond that, we focused on the disciplines that are generally found in engineers and entrepreneurs.

The goal?   See why so many individuals–and organizations–fail.                   

First of all, engineers are skilled in the planning, design and construction of a product or service.  They solve challenging problems, make technological breakthroughs and develop successful solutions.  They are stimulated by producing the next generation of technology and making it successful.                   

Entrepreneurs organize a business and assume risk for the sake of profit.  The entrepreneur is out to make money, take
risks and beat the competition.  He or she is excited by the challenge of starting an organization and making it successful. 

• The engineer is product-oriented. 
• The entrepreneur is profit-oriented. 

These goals are dramatically different.                   

The fundamental drives and motivations are so different that, all too often, the engineer can’t make the transition to entrepreneurial businessperson.  This inability to make the transition cripples many organizations as they go through their various stages of life.

Company Life Cycle 
While many don’t realize it, companies are a lot like people, in that they go through a complete life cycle.  

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Every boss, every manager and every company pays lip service to leading their people by empowerment and positive reinforcement. It’s much like the weather. Everyone talks about it but few really do anything about it.

“They swear they believe in the carrot not the stick,” one ex-manager told me of his former employer. “But a lot of people seem to be getting brutalized by that carrot.” “Brutalized” is actually my word. The phrase he used was considerably more graphic–and painful to imagine.

He showed me several post cards from his former co-workers. One read, “The flogging will continue until morale improves.” Another quoted Steven Wright, “For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism.”

I was reminded of a construction company vice president who, a few years back, hired me to deliver a presentation on the benefits of empowerment at to a management meeting. The session was very well received; the vice president himself was so inspired that he immediately leaped up and told all his managers that they’d better be empowered from that moment on, “Or believe me heads are going to roll.” He added, in all seriousness, “Just make sure you clear everything with me first.”

“He just empowered them to do nothing but claim to be empowered,” one of the other speakers whispered to me.

“Not quite,” I said. “He ordered them to claim to be empowered.”

If you’re managing people, try treating those you manage as partners not peons. As Booker T. Washington observed, “Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know you trust him.”

“Management is simple,” one award-winning leader claims. “I create incentives, small rewards, recognitions.

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It’s been said that on a plane trip, President George Bush senior personally wrote 40 notes of appreciation to various members of his staff. When his aides compared their notes, they discovered that every one of them was different. You can imagine how much each person appreciated his or her note. And most of them probably still have them. Personal expressions of appreciation can be great motivators. Recognizing your team members for their contributions is an important part of leadership. When people are properly recognized, they are likely to continue engaging in business with you. The ideal workplace is one where people are happy, productive, and proud of their accomplishments. Acknowledgment and rewards go a long way toward making a happy workplace.

Make acknowledgment an everyday activity, and be sure to be authentic – people can tell when you are not being authentic. Great leaders notice what their team members do, not only the accomplishments but also the effort. Imagine how you would feel if someone not only noticed the completion of your project, but also commended you on how you mastered the difficult aspects or how creative you were. Someone noticed! Someone cared enough to say something! It feels good to be noticed or to know that someone cares. Financial and non-financial rewards provide incentives to team members. Whatever kind of rewards you choose to give be sure they will be valued by the recipients. Imagine how the legal secretary felt every Christmas when his boss gave him several bottles of expensive wine even though the secretary had often told the lawyer that he was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. The reward really needs to match the values of the recipient in order to be truly appreciated. Reward each employee according to what motivates them personally, such as giving:

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Here is a quick synopsis of my keynote delivered in front of 600 Alberta mayors, reeves and councillors in Edmonton, Alberta following a provincial election in 2001, covering the Seven Laws of Leadership.

Example – people need to be able to depend on your leadership

Today more than ever, people are looking for leaders who will lead by example in their dealings with people, and their lifestyles.

Communication – people need to know what you are saying

Today more than ever, people are looking for clarity and consistency in our written and oral communications. They are looking for honesty and openness in the dialogue they have with us as leaders.

Ability – you need to be capable of leading other people

Today more than ever, people are looking for more than a slick appearance. They want content and proven ability they can trust to get them through the increasing challenges of the 21st Century.

Motivation – you need to know why you want to be a leader

Today more than ever, people want to know why you are doing what you are doing, and so do you! A simple ‘trust me’ won’t cut it.

Authority – people need to respond to your leadership

Today more than ever, people want to be able to see demonstrated commitment and power in your decisions and authority in your actions.

Strategy – you need to know where you are going

Today more than ever, people want to know you have a plan, and one that is well thought out, covering all the contingencies and challenges. And they want to know the details of that strategy before they agree to follow you.

Love/compassion – you need to care for the people around you

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In 1975, the city of New York was on the verge of bankruptcy, and due to this precarious position the main bank partner was in danger of going under too. In an effort to correct the situation, the president of the bank left the bank to join a group of financial experts, whose joint task was to steer the city out of trouble…which they eventually did. This is just about the most extreme case imaginable when it comes to defining the role of management: the president had to leave the bank to save the bank!

In everyday modern terms, the lesson is that two inexorable forces drive the best managers. The first is that they work ‘outside in’ and the second is that they work ‘inside out’. To work ‘outside in’ means that the manager’s thinking and focus starts with the market to be served. All organisational revenues, and indeed a company’s reputation, flow from the market to the business. Customers are not conscious of this special power that they possess, and nor do they need to be, but the fact remains that customers, and they alone, determine the success or failure of companies, their shareholders and staff. So, when I say that the best managers work ‘outside in’ to start with, this refers to their consistent concern for the external world of customers, concerning what they want (in service) and need (in results). These managers then work ‘inside out’ to ensure that the internal world of the business is designed to be a perfect match for the external world of the market.

Conversely, the worst performing managers just work ‘inside out’, with little or no appreciation of market dynamics. These menial managers attend endless, meaningless meetings, and engage in interminable admin work, because this is their vision of management duties.

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Women in the Boardroom, and Beyond
Over the past several decades, women have gained a far more prominent position on the American business scene.  Once relegated to roles of subservience, as viewers of the AMC television series “Mad Men” can attest, female corporate executives have continued to assert themselves in boardrooms across the country.  The business magazine Fortune has, for the past twelve years, created an annual listing of the 50 most powerful women in business.  Some of them hold the top spots in their respective companies, while others are well on the way to that position.  The characteristics they share are hardly different from their male counterparts – vision, persistence, and intelligence – but many will privately attest to the fact that reaching this point in their careers took extra effort.  As much as we would like to believe in an egalitarian world of business, there is still an extra thrill when a woman manages to “make it in a man’s world.”  One measure of success – when the list premiered in 1998, only two women of the 50 was a CEO or its equivalent.  This year’s list includes 13 CEOs.

Most Powerful Women in Business
Fortune has selected fifty powerful women for its annual list; here is an in-depth look at the top ten:

1. Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo); Chairman and CEO
This is the fourth year that Nooyi has topped the Fortune list.  She led this food and beverage conglomerate to $43 billion in sales and led the drive to buy out the company’s two largest independent bottlers.  That move alone is expected to save the company close to $300 million a year.

2. Irene Rosenfeld (Kraft Foods); Chairman and CEO
Remaining at the number two spot, Rosenfeld helped increase company revenue 15 percent and saw her company become part of the Dow 30, a highly influential position.

3.

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We all want that sense of achievement that comes with reaching our goals. Whether we are working for ourselves or working within a larger organization, we get a deep sense of satisfaction when we accomplish what we set out to do. Some people seem to achieve their objectives without much effort. Others never quite seem to get there. Have you experienced frustrations such as these?

• Only half of your managers are using the new system after spending over one million dollars on its implementation.
• The incidence of customer complaints continues to rise even after the latest product redesign.
• Members of your department continually change focus so nothing gets finished.

If so, then you may need to revisit how you set goals and plan for their accomplishment. From my years of working in a number of organizations and on a variety of projects, I have condensed the lessons I have learned into a simple five step process. I call this process the Five Cs approach. This approach does not use any rocket science, just the basics needed for getting things done in your organization. By using the Five Cs process steps you will improve the chances of achieving your and your organization’s objectives.

The Five Cs approach can be used for activities as basic as organizing your team’s leave calendar to the more complex planning and rollout of your organization’s annual fundraiser. The approach consists of these five basic steps:

Create   >>   Commit   >>   Communicate   >>   Carry Out   >>   Check

The steps in the process are essentially sequential, meaning that you will need mostly to complete an earlier step before proceeding to the next. Shortcutting steps in the process will only increase the amount of rework that you will need to do later on.

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Many organizations muddle through change. How is your organization progressing at implementing that new accounting system or moving to a new employee performance management process? Are your managers nodding approval in public but sabotaging the initiative in private? Are your employees shell-shocked and just giving up? Do you have no money left over for post-implementation support?

Whatever change your organization is trying to implement, knowing about and working through the necessary steps will go a long way to making your change initiative a success. I have distilled these crucial steps into a process model for change. The model is called the CHANGE Approach, with each letter signifying a step in the process. I have summarized below the key features of each step leading to a successful change transition.

Create tension
With this first step, articulate why change needs to happen and why it needs to happen within the planned timeframe. Many change programs start with a big bang, but then peter out ending in a whimper. Other programs struggle to develop the initial momentum. Think about the immediate force that will get your people moving in the right direction. This could be impending legislative changes, new entrants to the market, high levels of customer dissatisfaction, etcetera. Think also about the impacts of not changing, such as loss of market share or fines from regulators. To prepare your company for the impending objections, collect as much data as you can to back your assertions.

Harness support
Next, get on board the key decision makers, resource holders and those with the potential to subvert your change process. Start by identifying the key stakeholder groups; the people with something to lose or gain from your change proposal. Include in your analysis the end receivers of the new products or services, such as suppliers, customers and end users of software.

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As a manager, executive or business owner your top priority today is exceeding company goals. You can’t do it yourself, so the best way to exceed your goals is to have what we call “High Performance Teams” working for you. Your goals may include growing your business, increasing revenue, improving business efficiency, doing more with less, creating competitive advantage, improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs or leveraging intellectual assets. Your team, which may include (sales, marketing, finance, strategy, HR, IT, operations, shop floor, etc.) represents a very powerful mechanism for getting significant results in organizations today.

High performance teams are a special class of team that has the ability to easily adapt in a rapidly changing environment and is an essential element for highly successful organizations. The first step in building a high performance team is understanding the essential team ingredients that create a recipe for success. Building high performance teams is a top priority for many executives. The benefits and value produced by these teams are very clear and being viewed as essential tools in their business strategy. High performance teams produce many benefits.

1. Increased sales revenue
2. Increased productivity
3. Improved customer service
4. Ability to do more with less
5. Increased innovation
6. Ability to quickly adapt to change
7. Ability to solve difficult, critical problems

Sales Team Essentials – The Ingredients

So where do you begin? Like a great chef making the perfect soufflé, you must follow a recipe that will deliver the best possible outcome. This recipe includes the ingredients, preparation and the process for making the perfect soufflé.

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The ‘job for life’ is not a term often used now, but employers need to consider the importance of employee retention as it affects turnover, productivity and the business’s long-term success.

Here are some tips to help you keep your staff:

Recruit the right people
It seems a simple thing, but so many companies stumble by not employing the right person for the job. To ensure you have the best staff write a job description and key performance indicators before advertising the position. Think through the key interview questions and ask each candidate the same ones so you can compare ‘apples to apples’. Know the type of person you are looking for, what you want them to do and their employment conditions and you are off to a great start.

Favourable work environment and culture
Make your workplace flexible and supportive so employees feel comfortable in the environment. After all, they spend a third of their time at work so it pays to make it somewhere your staff want to be. Establish a system where employees can regularly express their opinions and ideas freely – and act on any that are good for the business.

Training, career development and feedback
It is very important that employees feel welcomed, wanted and that they are given the chance to succeed in their job. Put together a structured program where new people are brought up to speed quickly and continue it by allowing staff to develop to take on new challenges. Ongoing training means staff can grow over time to move into new positions and increase their value to you. Give your employees regular reviews and support so they know what to aim for, when they are doing well and when they need to improve. Without feedback your staff will perform below standard.

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A contemporary theory of leadership states that there are three basic ways that people become leaders. The first two explain the leadership development for a small number of people, the third explains how most leaders find their way into leadership positions. These theories are:

• The Trait Theory suggests that some personality traits may lead people naturally into leadership roles.
• The Great Events Theory suggests that a crisis or important event may cause a person to rise to the occasion of leadership. Such great events bring out extraordinary leadership qualities in an ordinary person. This is a subset of the Trait Theory.
• The Transformational Leadership Theory teaches that people can choose to become leaders. People can learn leadership skills. This is the most widely accepted theory today.

Christians add a variant to the Transformation Leadership Theory that understands that successful leaders are called into positions of leadership, that the transformation required is a work of the Holy Spirit in the life and character of a person.

When a person decides whether to respect you as a leader, he observes what you say and do in order to know who you really are. That is to say that the fundamental leadership characteristic is integrity.1 Integrity is a matter of doing what you say you will do. It is the conformity of thought and action, or belief and behavior. Your integrity reveals whether you are honorable and can be trusted or are a self-serving person who misuses authority and position to look good and get promoted.

Self-serving leaders are lucky when their employees obey them. But even when they do, they get only minimal obedience. They do not inspire followers who are committed to the well-being of their leader.

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Legend has it that Theodore Roosevelt and one of his cowhands found an unbranded steer on land controlled by Gregor Lang, a neighboring rancher.

In accord with the usual custom, they prepared to brand it, but as the cowboy applied the brand, Roosevelt said, “Wait, it should be Lang’s brand.”

“That’s all right, boss,” said the cowboy.

“But you’re putting on my brand,” Roosevelt said.

“That’s right,” the cowboy said, “I always put on the boss’s brand.”

“Drop that iron,” Roosevelt commanded, “and get back to the ranch and get out. I don’t need you anymore. A man who will steal for me will steal from me.”

Roosevelt understood that a person’s moral conviction must rest on something firmer than the presence or absence of particular people. Do what is right, no matter who might benefit or who might be watching.

— H. Hagedorn, Roosevelt in the Badlands, Theodore Roosevelt Nature & History Association (August, 2000), cited on CharacterFirst.

Why do we hire for skills, but fire for character1? Why do some people succeed and others fail?

The difference that makes a lasting difference is character. It is not heredity, not circumstances, not ability or disability, not favoritism or discrimination, not environment, not luck or chance. It’s none of these. Rather, those who overcome obstacles are the people who succeed.

Are people born with the drive to overcome? Or can it be taught? Yes. And yes. Anyone who has children knows that babies are born with certain tendencies or character traits. Yet, it is also true that people learn to be who they become. Most of this learning takes place in the family.

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When you became a manager, there’s a good chance that you didn’t realize that providing employee training would become a major portion of your job. However, it’s a fact that teaching is an essential function of every managerial job. When you’re in charge of managing and motivating other workers – no matter how small or large your team may be – training is something that you’re going to have to do on a regular basis.

Providing training to employees is a very specific skill, and it’s one that many managers don’t realize they need to have. Sharing information and teaching people how to perform tasks are two very different things. When you are providing training to team members, you have to focus on conveying information to them in a manner that is motivating and that will enable them to truly understand what you are saying so they will be able to transfer that knowledge to on-the-job performance.

3 Keys to Effective Employee Training

1. Recognize Your Training Responsibilities
Too many mangers think that employee training is “someone else’s job”. Even if your company has someone in charge of training, those who hold supervisory roles bear responsibility when it comes to employee training and development. If you want to lead a peak performing team, you must be prepared to coach and train your team members to excel.

Managers at every organizational level are responsible for making sure that the employees on their teams have the skills needed to perform the work required. Accomplishing this managerial duty involves providing effective training to team members about company polices and procedures and industry standards, as well as recognizing the need for skill-based training and making sure that it is available to employees who need it.

2.

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Many managers and supervisors struggle to get the best out of their employees. Do you have difficulty understanding why your workers behave the way they do? Sometimes this is because managers mistakenly assume that everyone is like them: “I like a lot of detail, so everyone else must as well”. And when an employee turns in a report that looks like an executive summary, this type of manager stresses to find out what went “wrong” with the employee.

In other cases, the manager works on the assumption that their employees’ preferences are the opposite of their own. This type of manager, for example, believes that employees are motivated primarily by their paycheck whilst they themselves are motivated by a stiff challenge.

What both these types of managers share is that they are both one-dimensional; seeking to explain all or most of their employees’ behaviors by a single cause. People are much more complex than this. Being able to appreciate some of this complexity will help make otherwise unintelligible behaviors understandable. Using this knowledge to then shape employee behavior will not only take some of the stress out of managing people, it will lead to greater rewards as employees begin to work with you and not against you.

Without wading through a lot of theory, let me illustrate the power of psychology with a real-life example. In one computer production facility, the production manager wanted to lift production levels. To do this, she implemented a new incentive scheme in which production workers would receive a 5% increase in their take home wage if they increased the number of units produced by 30%. This did require some effort on the part of the employees as the productivity gains could only eventuate if each of them learned how to use the new microprocessor-controlled cutting machine.

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