Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

"Often the recipients of stock options don't place the same value on them as the giver does, or should."

This is important to me not because of the stock option side of it, but the general area of compensation for our people. We have to understand that value to people will mean a much different thing from person to person.

Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. One thing that can hurt relationships with great employees is to offer them compensation they have no input in. It can cause more disgruntlement than not having compensation at all.

Most of us know the costs and what we can offer people, it shouldn't matter within those parameters what it is we provide.

This is all simple and easy to understand, but can be difficult to implement because it does take going the extra mile with our people. In the end it's worth every bit of the extra effort needed to make it happen.
 
When I say difficult to implement, I don't mean so much in execution, as it's not hard to put things into place that people want. It's more the tracking of those things that makes it more detailed and time consuming.

Once we ask our people what they prefer and want, and respond to it if we're at all able to, it's then a matter of putting together a system of tracking that will measure usage.

In the beginning this could be difficult, but once things are in place, it shouldn't be that difficult to get this done. Then it's just a matter of adding new people as they enter the workforce.

The major thing to remember is people impute value to things differently. It's our job to do everything we can in reference to compensation to make sure it lines up with what people individually value. Those little things can do more to retain great workers than possibly anything else available.

Consider how Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) never lose managers in the companies they own. It tells you that what people desire is being catered to. We can't do much better than that for our people.

Other Buffett Resources:

Wisdom of Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett, investor

Warren Buffett: The trouble with being a legend

Warren Buffett: 'I told you so'

Company growth

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