The Babysitter Analogy

Last week some emails flew around one Inner Circle regarding a member’s problem with a poorly performing staff member. While all the advice was good, one email included an insightful analogy that makes so much sense that I wanted to share it. Here my paraphrase of Alan Greer’s “Babysitter” Analogy.

“There really aren’t any employees out there that will do things exactly like an owner, they didn't really shed blood, sweat and tears like you did. I even have an analogy for you. My analogy is this: You can't pay a babysitter enough to love your kids like you do. Now some babysitters genuinely cared for our kids and took the responsibility very seriously, but they didn't love our kids, they're a babysitter. Some babysitters did a poor job and we never asked them back, some babysitters did okay and we continued to use them but nothing special, then there were babysitters that the kids just adored and wanted them to come over even when my wife and I were home, now that's a great babysitter. Employees fall into categories like babysitters.”

What I like about Alan’s contribution is that it helps you acknowledge that trying to get employees to act like owners might be an unreasonable expectation. And it gives an easy to understand way of determining which employees are the ones to build your business with.

Which kind of babysitter do you have as employees?