No Budget? No Problem. How to Do More with Less

Think you've got budget cut woes? Consider the not-for-profit world, where CEOs and their teams routinely achieve big results with (comparatively) tiny amounts of cash. That's the message of Zilch, The Power of Zero in Business by Yale School of Management adjunct professor Nancy Lublin, who's also the CEO of DoSomething.org, an organization that helps kids get involved in volunteering and social entrepreneurship. The book touts the benefits of doing more with less. Recently, I spoke with Lublin about custodians who love their jobs, the importance of enemies, and using what you have to get what you don't. BNET: What do corporations get wrong about motivating and retaining good people?

Lublin: Corporate wisdom dictates that the more you pay employees, the more value you'll extract from them. Yet we have only to look back to 2008 to see how wrong that wisdom is. Despite Wall Street's annus horribilis, its employees took home an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses. What matters more than pay is producing a high-quality product or service that people can take pride in.

In the book, I tell a story about a time that President Lyndon Johnson visited NASA headquarters. While there, he had a brief conversation with a custodian,who said, "I helped put a man on the moon." He made no mention of brooms or waste bins.

BNET: How can you get employees to feel like that custodian?

Lublin: Don't underestimate the power of believing in something. Tie corporate goals to whatever your company does best, whether it makes the fastest, cheapest, or only product or service of its kind. Include employees from all levels of the company in the pursuit of that goal, which needs to be specific and measurable. Not-for-profits set fundraising goals like this all the time. Everyone knows what needs to be accomplished. Not-for-profits also benefit from having a common enemy, like cancer or world hunger. Corporations need enemies too: their competitors.

BNET: Are you saying that money doesn't matter?

Lublin: Usually, money is more symbolic. Managers think it's everything, but really they need to listen more and get to know their employees as people. Often, they'll find the problems aren't related to pay. An employee may be bored or unhappy that there's no window in his office.

BNET: Speaking of windowed offices, how can a for-profit business save money on perks while keeping employees happy?

Lublin: There are many ways to be resourceful. For example, let's say your office closes at five and doesn't reopen until nine the next morning. That's a lot of hours. Your company might consider renting out conference rooms to Kaplan [the standardized-test prep service], which holds most of its classes at night. Consider what you have in excess, and figure out how you can use it to get what you lack.