Ep. 313 - Fair and Equal

What is the difference between fairness and equality in leadership? Recognizing individual performance and strengths can promote a more productive environment.

Discover how to cultivate a team culture that values excellence over mediocrity.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the On Purpose podcast. Honor the
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your six. What's up, everybody? Welcome to this week's edition

(00:46):
of the On Purpose podcast, where you know it's our
privilege and our pleasure to be here with you to
get your thinking, get you reflecting, maybe maybe even changing
your behaviors a little bit. And this week it's an
episode I've been thinking about for a while, and I've
had this discussion with different groups of leaders I've been
able to talk with, and just individuals in general. And

(01:10):
something that honestly drives me nuts, and that is the
concept of fair and equal being the same thing, fair
and equal being the same thing. And here's my question
for you, is treating everyone equally actually fair? And how

(01:33):
do we confuse the terms equal and fairness in our
leadership and our daily lives and our relationships? Right? And
I want to kind of talk about that. And here's
something that comes to mind is, say I have one
hundred dollars and I have two people that are doing
something for me. You're supposed to do something for me.

(01:54):
And of those two people, one excels and goes above
and beyond, does everything it does the top notch and
high quality, and I don't even have to double check
it think it's perfect. The other one cuts corners. I
have to watch them constantly, I have to pay attention
to everything they're doing. Yet if I want to treat

(02:15):
them equal, the one hundred dollars goes fifty to fifty.
But what have I done to the person who actually
cared about the performers? What have I done to the
person that actually gave more? Did I diminish their ability
to do that again, did I challenge them to say, Okay,
well maybe I won't work as hard because this person
over here did way less than me and got the

(02:37):
exact same reward. Right, See, that's equal? But is that fair?
And here's what I would challenge you to think about,
is that treating equal equal is the opportunity. That's how
I look at it. Right. Equal means we both have
the same opportunity. All the employees have the same opportunity

(02:57):
to excel. The players on the team have the same opportunity,
to the kids in your classroom, the same opportunity to learn.
That's equal the opportunity. Fairness is what do you do
with that opportunity? Right? Because I don't want to take

(03:18):
the person that cuts corners requires me to supervise them
all the time, double check their work. I don't want
to reward that behavior by giving them equally the same
thing that the high performer gets. I don't want to
condone that behavior. I want to challenge them to be
better and maybe by going fairness when they see, wow,

(03:41):
I only got twenty of the eighty dollars and this
guy or twenty of one hundred dollars and my coworker
got eighty. Maybe I want to be more like them.
Maybe now I will challenge them to step up because
the reward was based on their performance, not the opportunity
they had to opportunity they just chose not to perform. Conversely,

(04:05):
if I go equal in that scenario, what have I
done to the motivation for the person that did choose
to excel. Well, hopefully they're intrinsically motivated, I mean the inside,
and they'll continue to do that despite wondering why this
person over here is getting paid the exact same I am,

(04:27):
or why the reward is exactly the same for less effort.
But I bet more than likely a lot of times
what you'll see is their performance starts to diminish because
now the standard is not there, as the standard is
what you accepted, which is the lowest common denominator. Or
what you'll see in a lot of today's workplaces is
they're gonna go find a new place to work. They're

(04:48):
gonna go find a new employer that rewards them for
being them and for going above and beyond. It does
not treat them the exact same as the person that
didn't perform, Right, that could be a gray line or
a slippery soap. People are like, oh, well you can't.
You know, if you don't treat everybody equal, that's some
form of discrimination. And I'm saying, no, no, no, that's not

(05:09):
That's not what I'm saying at all. Equal is the opportunity,
regardless of what you look like, what you believe in,
what political part, any of the shit that separates us
right now. Equal just means you get a chance. Fair
means as a leader, I'm gonna pay attention to reward
those who are doing the things that I want done,
the performance that we need, and I'm hold accountable the

(05:33):
people that aren't living up to the standards, that aren't
doing what we need to uplift the whole team. See
when we play to the lowest common denominator, well then
that's becomes the standard for the team. That becomes what
we will accept from everybody. And I challenge you to
raise the bar around you. Don't accept mediocrity because you

(05:59):
think that's equal, but challenge that. Go wait a second,
why am I accepting this? Why am I accepting this?
If I'm a boss at work, I'm a leader of
people at work on a team Why am I accepting
this in relationships? Why would I tolerate lesser than just

(06:20):
because I think I owe it to him to be
equal to them. To be everything has to be the
same for everybody. Despite some people giving me more in life,
investing more. I mean that friend that calls you to
check on you, that shows up when you need a
most should have different acts. I should have different relationship

(06:44):
with you than the one that you never hear from,
that only calls you when you need them or when
they need you. But now we're if we're equal, we're
going to say okay, eybody gets the same, right, And
that's that just breeds mediocrity. And here's an example I have.
We're not as a policeman. We went into this whole Uh.
I forget what the fancy term was, but basically they

(07:06):
created this new structure for evaluations and it was designed
to hide mediocre leaders. Leaders that couldn't have difficult conversations,
that couldn't say, hey, Jared, you're dropping the ball. I
need you to perform better like your teammates. Right, So
what we didn't because we didn't have those skills to
have those conversations. We created this thing where every year
around evaluation time, they created a structure where on your team,

(07:30):
only one person could be rated a five out of five,
Only one person could be rated at four out of
five three or one person could be rated three out
of five, which is average. Right, So like one person
could be the best, one person could be second best,
and then the rest of the team had to be threes.
That was the structure they created to manage the money

(07:51):
for bonuses and raises. So what happened, what happened? Right? So,
if you know you're going to be evaluated, but they've
already created a structure, it's artificial structure. It says, no
matter what you're doing, no matter how good, all of
you on the team are only one of you is
gonna be rated exceptional, one of you is gonna be
rated good, and everybody else just has to be meeting

(08:13):
needs or meeting standards or acceptable, whatever youone call it.
Because we've got to manage the resource of what we're
gonna pay out. What does that do for a performance?
Why would I go to excel if I know you're
gonna categorize this in one of those three categories, no
matter what, and you got to meet the certain numbers,
So what would happen. We'd come in for our reviews

(08:35):
and literally our boss would start with, well, guys, you
know I can only give one of you a five.
So this year, Jared, I'm gonna give it to you
because the five can with say, a three percent bonus.
And well, now you know number two here, you're gonna
get the four, which comes with a two percent bonus.
And well, you know it's your turn this year to
get a three, So you're gonna get a one percent

(08:57):
pay raise. But then next year we're gonna switch. So
what's that tell you? It has nothing to do with
how I'm actually performing. It has all to do with
what your manager trying to be equal to give everybody
the best rays once every three or four years, whatever
your team size was. But the meantime that equality of
trying to manage that thing. How unfair is that if

(09:17):
somebody is truly exceptional, if somebody is truly exceeding your needs,
meeting the demands, going above beyond, but because of an
artificial thing to be equal, you're gonna make say I'm
average for the year. Do I really want to perform?
Do I really want to stay working here? If that's
the reward, right. If that's what I'm going to get

(09:38):
out of going above and beyond is to say, well,
it's just not your turn to be exceptional. We're going
to give you average, so that the person next to you,
you're like, man, I'm working circles around this person now
gets to be exceptional. Right. And that's one of the
things for me that always drove me crazy is that
was designed to try to be equal, right to give everybody.
Everybody gets to be a five at some point point,

(10:00):
But that's not the truth. We're not always going to
be fized. Not everybody's going to be the best in
their field. So if I don't reward them, the ones
that are truly doing that, if I don't reward them,
I'm diminishing what they're doing the impact right, And people

(10:20):
could say, well, you know you got to rotate that
around stuff. I don't. I think you got to have
good leaders. And as good leaders, that means we have
difficult conversations. We pull people in to say, hey, you're
not carrying the load, you're not doing what you're supposed
to do. This whole idea of being everything's equal to
me is an escapego for poor leadership for people that
don't want to have difficult different conversations to say, hey, Jared,

(10:43):
you're not pulling your end of the deal here, we
need to step it up. Equal is in the opportunity
we ensure everyone that we lead, that we impact has
the chance to excel. Fairness is in the performance. What

(11:03):
do you do with that opportunity? Right? And that's how
I look at when I lead people, when I get
to talk about leadership, when I get to just reflect
on my life. If my kids, if my kids come
to me, We've got three kids, and I have, you know, say,
for argument, I have the one hundred dollars to share,

(11:23):
and one kid's going exceptionally doing everything, good grades, hard
work and all this stuff. One's kind of in the middle,
like does it when they want to, but not all
the time. And then one is just like, I'll let
my I'll let the other two do everything. I'll kind
of hang out and play. Well, do I really want
to split that money thirty three dollars apart for all

(11:43):
three of them? No, to me, obviously, I want to
reward the one that's going above and beyond, recognize the
one that is in the middle, that's doing some of
the stuff, but really encourage them to slide over to
above and beyond and let the person know that's not
doing anything, that's relying upon everybody else to get stuff done,
that hey, that's not what we're rafter, and there's no

(12:05):
I'm not going to reward that behavior the same as
I am on another spectrum. And we have the same
thing with employees, right we have employees that go above
and beyond that study, that learn, that want to progress,
that want to make something out of that career. I
want to reward that. I want to let them know
I see what they're doing, that I appreciate it, that

(12:30):
I recognize it, and let the people that aren't doing
that know, hey, this is what we want to see
because when you do that, you raise the bar of
expectation for everybody. So give that some thought this week.
Let me know what you're thinking. The DMS. I know
a lot of people are like, oh, equal means everybody,
and I'm just like, dude, that's not how I perform.
I don't think any high performing team that I've ever

(12:51):
been around, everybody is exactly the same. And one of
my favorite people to read about and the study is
Michael Jordan and Michael Jordan. If you watch any of
his interviews, if you watched The Last Dance, which is
a fabulous documentary, you will see that he demanded excellence
from everybody, and he didn't treat everybody the same. If
you didn't earn his respect, he was going to be

(13:13):
on you and he was going to challenge you to
step up because he knew what it took to be
a champion and he wanted people that were going to
rise to the occasion around him. I have to think
of that in life, right. Challenge the people that are
around you to be who they said they're going to be,
to be who you need them to be. Don't accept

(13:34):
mediocrity in your relationships. Don't accept mediocrity and the people
that show up only when they need you. But then
make sure we're also looking at that mirror and saying, hey,
am I making the most of my opportunities. Am I
making the most of the opportunities given to me with
what I have right now? Or am I just settling

(13:54):
for average and hoping people are going to treat people
are gonna treat me based on everybod It's the same verse,
based on what I've earned right, earn what we want,
earn what we keep, Earn the opportunity to give. So
give that some thought this week. I'd love to know

(14:15):
what you hear, and as always, I thank you for
being here. I have a great week, and remember team,
when life is far too short to live any other
way than on purpose. We'll see you all again next week.