Brain Breach

It’s not terribly common these days for managers and employees to have learning time built right into their job description. What if the paradigm was shifted a bit to allow this for huge company benefit?

My employees are allowed to study, on my clock, based on how expensive their decisions are. Managers make costlier decisions, and warrant more study time. See, folks that do a good job in management, don’t have to get a terribly large amount done day to day. Managers at a McDonalds, or other store front have a different situation, and don’t justify as much on going training in the theoretical. Folks in say, a lead architect position, or head of marketing shouldn’t be consumed with daily tedious tasks. When would their brain rest and provide me with those great breakthrough ideas?

The more theoretical, the more expensive the decision, the more they should be treated as scholars than janitors. This is in regards to study and brain rest time of course, not respect for the position or person.

This leads to problems though. It might not feel right to the CEO to see high paid managers or other C level folks reading with their feet up on the desk, or taking long walks everyday. “I just paid that guy $100 to get a sun tan!!!!!” are the words I imagine. It should be so clear to them.

Think of a decision that could cost the company $1,000,000, with the potential to make $2,000,000, or $0. Let’s say your head of marketing is making this decision, and has spend a total of three months of combined paid time walking or reading over the last year. That’s simple math! He or She is most likely going to make a much more informed decision with deep contemplation and study. So maybe his time and study materials costs $50,000. Wouldn’t that be a fair price to raise such odds?

Forcing this person to fill their time with menial work, just to keep busy is completely counter productive to bottom line of the business. Our best decisions come from little phrases we read in books, or something that comes up in thought or conversations. Put more of those tokens in the brain of you manager, and reap the rewards.