post # 287 — Thursday, January 18, 2007 — a Managing post
Non-Financial Currencies
What do you do if you’re the boss of a group, and someone within it has done well, but you can’t give them a raise? What other “non-financial currencies” are particularly effective?
Commonly listed non-financial currencies would be these:
- Approval (Well Done)
- Gratitude (Thank you)
- Autonomy (Extra degrees of freedom to operate that others in the group do not have)
- Recognition (in front of others)
- Visibility (to others inside and outside the office)
- Contacts (to key people)
- Access to Information (Becoming more of an Insider)
- Access to additional resources
- Rapid response (by manager, even faster than to rest of the team)
- Task support (more resources)
- Titles (Official and Unofficial)
- Special roles or assignments
- Extra Challenges
- Access to Participation / Involvement in hi-status tasks
- Personal Interest / Support
Is it possible to say which of these are the best to use? Are some of them dangerous? What categories do you see?



















Bob McIlree said
http://enterprisearchitect.typepad.com
How about an excellent professional reference for their next position...just kidding...sort of...
A number of these are dangerous from a management and political perspective because the manager could be seen as playing 'favorites' by the rest of his reports. In particular, I think that 3,7,8,9, and 14 have this characteristic.
In the past I have tended to give stellar performers difficult and challenging assignments that I knew would be problematic for other people in my organization. I viewed this simply as good business and not favoritism - but at times it was not construed that way by others on my team. Once the latter happens or is perceived, it is difficult to rectify. Which is why I find some of the items on the list problematic from leadership and management perspectives.
posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007