Earlier quoted context omitted.
A couple points - They're partners, not employees. Yes, I'll suffer at the printshop when I promised it. My colleague offered to do it, but he just had a baby and it would be ridiculous to keep him all night. No one else was available on Sunday night. > they tend to be neither very good businessmen nor good employers. My staff like me, I pay top of market (sometimes 10x market pay, if the person is worth it but short…
Jon here. First: I'm fine with this email. Didn't love it, responded to it in a way that raised my own issues, worked them out with Seb on the phone, moved on. Second: I'm fine with him posting this email. He posts a lot of very candid material about his somewhat unique approach to life and business, which I respect and have benefited from, so am happy to contribute back in the form of a character in one of his stori…
My personal thought is that with some relatively minor modifications, this could work as a pretty powerful motivator.
The points of "I'm trusting you completely; you don't have to run your decisions by me; I recognize that I do and will owe you enormously if we all manage to pull off what we said we would" is not bad at all, and would motivate me.
It's not the kind of thing you can pull out every two months -- that would be horrible -- but it sounds like he's asking for a complete commitment for a short burst of time, and also recognizing that this is costly in many ways.