You run a great business and you want to hire the best people. And who can blame you? You have a lot riding on the choices you make. Their performance reflects not only on your success as a manager, but on the fortunes of your business, too. If your new employees perform well, you succeed and your business gets a big boost. But if they don’t, then both you and the company suffer. It’s an important decision. So how do you go about making the best choice?
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I first heard about the Three Envelopes more than 30 years ago when I was working for a local educational institution. It was a very short presentation on briefing the person replacing you. Over the years I’ve run across the program in other places, in slightly different forms, including some Internet search results. I’m retiring soon, and I’ll be leaving three envelopes at my workstation for my replacement.
Envelope #1
Outside note: Open in six months if the job is tougher than you thought
Contents: “If the job is getting tough, simply say that you are just getting up to speed, learning the systems you’ve inherited.”
Moving into an existing job always requires learning how things work. Whether they use Strunk’s Elements of Style, OpenSource servers, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or self-written Step-by-Step Operating Procedures, every business will adjust and modify that guide or program to best satisfy the needs of the company. No matter who in the company chose that system, you must claim that you, the new person, need time to learn how it works. Make sure you take that time.
Envelope #2
Outside note: Open in a year if the job is getting very stressful
Contents: “If you are getting really stressed by the job and upper management is breathing down your neck, blame everything on me.”
Using your predecessor as the scapegoat has a long and honored history. It is no less effective for having been used a gazillion times before. Your predecessor is not present to defend themselves, and blame is safely transferred offsite without collateral damage. No one present will gainsay you in the presence of higher management and risk blame backlash.
Envelope #3
Outside note: Open anytime after one year if you’re overwhelmed by the job, and your job performance/output can’t reach correspondence with chief level (CEO, CIO, CCBWO) denizen’s preconceived pet theories.
Contents: “Make out three new envelopes.”
Steve Lange
Senior Editor (Ret.)
Palo Alto Software
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Small businesses, individually owned or family-owned, are really the backbone of this country’s economy, employing more people nationwide than the big-name giant corporations, and serving most of our daily living needs.
For many of these businesses, family continuity, the transition/succession of ownership/management from one generation to the next, is a huge issue. I’ve worked for four different family businesses in four very different industries, and have seen four different approaches to generation transition.
The most interesting I think was a local grocery store chain. The company was owned by several brothers, was a couple of decades old and had been holding its own, and expanding, in the face of pressure from the big national chains.
As a family business, it was not surprising that many of the brothers’ family (wives, kids, and siblings) worked there. What was surprising was the family employment structure. Each of the brothers managed different stores. When a family member wanted to work in the company they got jobs with their in-laws, as it were.
The short story is that the kids my age all worked for their uncles, not their dads. The process was interesting to watch as a young employee, and over the years I’ve become impressed by the brothers’ wisdom. These guys were shrewd businessmen and canny managers.
When their kids began working, they started at the bottom of the heap, waiting the bakery counter, stocking shelves, bagging groceries, etc. In working at their uncles’ stores, each of the next generation got to choose whether they would apply themselves, simply work for some cash, or screw off.
The uncles were able to objectively supervise their young kin, while listening to and supporting their department managers (who could give honest feedback without falling afoul of the “nobody-can-criticize-the-boss’-kid-trap”), and showed very little favoritism or preferential treatment that I could see. I don’t recall any of the kids who were my peers being jumped up to better jobs or inflated pay rates. If they worked hard, they were trained and tutored. When they slacked off they got chewed out, just like me, or they got canned.
A couple of the kids who were a few years older than me seemed to be genuinely interested in the business. After working in several departments at one store, one of the boys had been moved to the store where I worked to start his training as assistant manager, again, with his uncle. Having worked up from the inside and the bottom, this scion, as near as I could tell, encountered minimal resistance or resentment from other current employees and department managers, when he eventually became general manager. He was not there simply because he was the boss’ kid. He’d worked and earned his way there.
For this company, the conscious, planned, process of testing and training (and weeding out) of their children as participants in the family business paid off as the brothers, in their turn, handed off management of this successful grocery business to the next generation.
Steve Lange
Palo Alto Software
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