Z.E.R.O.: Zero Paid Media as the New Marketing Model

CHAPTER11

Tenure

Before we tackle compensation in the following chapter, we need to address another human resources-related topic: tenure. It ties back to the business and economic reasons for the perfect storm, where we described the short-term-ness of business today.

Remember Dave from Chapter 4? The average length of any one of his positions within one and the same company was 1.7 years. It will come as no surprise that we will advocate for a slow-as-you-go approach to career development as opposed to this kind of moving on up.

We recommend that businesses implement a variation of the following rules:

• Any job assignment should last three years at a minimum.

  This is the no-brainer rule. Year 1 is the year you do everything for the first time. President Obama took 100 days to get to know his job when he was first elected, and so should you. Then get to work.

  In year 2, you can call the plans your own. These are the 12 months where your impact will be felt, as it is all driven by you.

  And finally you get to year 3, when you reap the rewards of your cunning plans and we can truly judge the business impact you have. This is the year you also begin to plot your next move. Repeat until retirement.

• If the assignment takes you to a foreign land (or a completely new industry), add one or two years. This makes sense because not only are you trying to make the business your own, but you are also navigating a new culture and business environment.
• Build targets and incentive objectives ...