How To Get Paid Like A Boss

I found this on Quora the other day:

“I‘ve seen that the best positions at companies and the best paying jobs may not equate to the skills of the people at these positions and salaries. Hence, we hear that people are “overpaid.” How can I be overpaid?”

Well, I’m the guy on the other side: the dreaded boss. I own the company and dictate what people get paid, and which people get fired. I have one driving desire: the success of my company.

For people to be valuable to me, they must help me create that success. I rank people into three buckets:

“B” Players

B players are people who can take hard problems — our clients’ and our company’s problems — and solve them.

B players are our kick-ass developers who constantly deliver software that solves problems for our clients’ users. B players are our project managers that constantly delight our clients. B players are our admin team that balance the books, fast, every month and keep track of all those little details that constantly try to squeeze through the cracks.

B players are the heart and soul of our teams, and are the people we love working with because they get shit done.

“A” Players

A players go above and beyond and aren’t just good at solving hard problems. They seek them out. They don’t just solve hard problems. They solve problems without a clear next step and a clear right answer (or any “right” answer at all). They solve them so well that the solution, itself, is sexy.

Our A programmers deliver elegant solutions that make people stop and wonder in awe at how they got so much done in so little time. Our A project managers find ways to help our clients’ businesses grow explosively. Our A operations people find ways to automate away manual tasks without being asked and mitigate risks we haven’t even thought of. Our A players find ways to drive revenue, make our company massively successful, and make my job as the boss, easier.

A players are the people on your team that you turn to when you don’t know the answer. They’re the people that bosses turn to for projects that can’t be allowed to fail. They’re the people bosses shiver about with dread when they contemplate losing them.

The “Everyone Else” Players

This makes up the rest of the folks on earth: the people who don’t really like what they do for a living. These are the people who don’t try to make themselves better versions of who they are, regularly. They’re the people that aren’t good fits for their job roles, but stay because they need the money and they’re afraid of change. They’re the people about whom you secretly think, “I hope I don’t get that person on my next project.”

So…how do you get paid like a boss?

You find ways to be the A player. You seek out hard problems that other people are struggling with, don’t want, or don’t even know about, and you solve them. You ask yourself relentlessly, “Where can I add the most value?” You figure out what you need to learn to add even more. And you put one foot in front of the other, everyday, and get it done.

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