Another well-known company just announced a major change to its employee bonus plan. Starting in fiscal 2027, eligible employees’ bonuses will be based 100% on individual performance, rather than a 50/50 split between company and individual results.
I can see both sides.
Reward people for their contributions? Absolutely.
Hold people accountable for results? Of course.
But here’s what concerns me.
When the pressure to perform goes up, what happens to the people doing the performing?
I’ve spent 30+ years in corporate America, much of it in enterprise software, sales, leadership, and enablement. This includes a solid run at Microsoft, LinkedIn’s parent company, the one that announced the big change to its employee bonus plan.
I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of performance management.
And I’ve lived it.
I was crushing it, and at the same time, I was quietly getting crushed.
I had the money, title, and the big wins. I looked so great on paper, I got a gold star from Microsoft (yes, a gold star). That type of “at-a-boy” doesn’t help pay the bills, and the stress, the long days, the relationships, the energy it took to keep winning?
That was a different story.
Here’s what took me far too long to figure out.
High performance and a great life shouldn’t be competing goals.
Yet for many people, they are.
More pressure. More comparison. More stress.
We work harder to prove our value, sometimes at the expense of the very things we value most.
And it doesn’t stop when we leave work.
We bring it home.
The frustration. The fatigue. The short fuse. The replay of that one conversation with our boss.
Sound familiar?
Here’s what changed for me.
“Kind Curiosity Creates Change.”
I stopped trying to control everything happening around me and started getting better at how I responded to it.
I learned to:
SPOT what’s really happening before reacting.
SHIFT my thinking with kindness and curiosity. This was the winning combination for me… it may sound obvious: be kind, I was. Be curious, I was that, too. It’s when I combined both together, kind + curiosity. That’s when everything changed (for the better).
CHANGE what I do next, starting with one small action.
Same pressure. Different response. Better results.
That’s the idea behind Everyday Edge.
Not another way to squeeze more work into your day.
A way to get more from your day, with less stress, so you can do great work AND live a great life.
Because winning more should add to your life, not take away from it.
Here’s my question:
Are companies helping people perform better, or simply putting more pressure on them to perform?
I think there’s a big difference.
What do you think?
— mike d.
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