If you had signed a contract…and you were going to get paid, no matter what…but you couldn’t deliver a portion of what you had signed to provide…would you refuse the money?
Gil Meche did.
If you’re not a rabid baseball fan — or if you’re not from Kansas City — you’ve probably never heard the name Gil Meche. He had pitched for six seasons with the Seattle Mariners, then signed a free agent, guaranteed contract with the Kansas City Royals for five years at $55 million dollars.
Year one was pretty darn good — he made the American League All-Star team, and pitched fairly well for another couple of years. Until last year. Nine starts. Zero wins.
Meche’s body had started to fall apart, at least by the standards of elite athletes. Problems in his shoulder of his pitching arm made him completely ineffective.
The Royals were on the hook for $12 million for Meche for this coming year. They planned to move him into a role as a relief pitcher, where the workload would have been a bit lighter. Until, Gil Meche dropped a bomb on them.
“When I signed my contract, my main goal was to earn it,” Meche told the New York Times this week from his home in Lafayette, Louisiana. “Once I started to realize I wasn’t earning my money, I felt bad. I was making a crazy amount of money for not even pitching. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I didn’t want to have those feelings again.”
Gil Meche told the Kansas City Royals he was going to retire, meaning he will not be paid a cent. He walked away from a guaranteed $12,000,000 — but kept his integrity.
According to the Times’ article, “Meche told the Royals’ general manager, Dayton Moore, that he did not want any of the paycheck due him. No settlement, no buyout, no strings. ‘He felt the organization had been very good to him, and he felt he needed to, not repay, but in his mind do the right thing,’ Moore said. ‘I’m not saying that if a player decides to do his best and fulfill his contract that’s the wrong thing. But Gil did what he felt was right for him.’”
I’ve seen companies lose customers — and the very viability of their business — by trying to wring every last cent out of the enterprise.
One company created Ultimate Customer Experiences ® and dramatically increased their revenues — then, the CEO thought if they just cut back their services to customers, they could make even MORE profit. Which, of course, drove customers away…commoditized the business…and in a few years, it had to close its doors.
It’s a paradox, isn’t it? Sometimes to maintain (and enhance) your integrity, you have to leave some money on the table.
To alter just a bit an old line used to encourage highway safety into one for professional purposes –
Greed kills.
A real reason for YOU to celebrate Labor Day…
Every January first, many of us decide what resolutions we will make about improvement in the coming year.
Then, we promptly forget our goals.
As Labor Day marks the beginning of the final third of the year, perhaps it’s a great time for us to re-evaluate how we have been doing. And, as it happens this time every year, the pundits and politicians will leverage the holiday for the advantage of their particular point of view.
One side will talk about the “good old days” when workers were more organized and the playing field between the employee and owners was more level. The other will espouse that the labor organizations eventually became worse than the owners, spiraling the country into low productivity when evaluated against global competition.
What I would suggest is more important is simply this: The economy has added no new jobs, the first time in eleven months total payrolls have not risen, according to the New York Times.
Four steps — taken from “Collapse of Distinction.”
First — Clarity. Be clear about who and what you are — the “jack of all trades” approach doesn’t work anymore. The reason? There are too many of them.
It seems like everyone wants to do everything — but few do ONE thing really, really well. Resolve to learn more…so you can become more…no matter where you are on your career path.
Second — Creativity. Distinctive professionals — those whom every organization desires, regardless of economic circumstances — have a point of uniqueness about how they do their work. It’s not that they do everything differently…it’s that they find some innovative approach that marks them apart from the masses. What can you do a little differently…a little more creatively?
Third — Communication. Tell stories. Seriously. People today do not want a mundane recitation of facts and figures. They DO want the information, but they desire it placed within a compelling narrative. If you don’t know how to communicate though stories, sign up for anything from a creative writing course at a community college to Toastmasters. It will be time well spent.
Fourth — Compelling Experiences. As trite as it sounds, friends seldom fire friends. (Not saying it never happens, by any means…but it sure is more difficult.) That doesn’t mean “make your boss your buddy” — it means in business today we desire emotional connections. Focus on how you can enhance relationships. If customers and colleagues feel connected to you, that they can trust and engage you, that you are a person that makes the company a better place to work – then you have a much stronger likelihood of being able to continue to make a contribution.
However, in this challenging and volatile economy, if you can use this holiday weekend to re-examine your priorities — and resolve to find a way to labor in a manner that’s more productive for both you and your organization — this Labor Day will be a true cause of celebration!
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