What happened when I fired 2,500 bank managers?

5 October 2026

Some years ago I was asked to present a management seminar for a major bank. There were about 2,500 managers in the room.

These managers were, in my opinion, already punch-drunk from management training, so I decided to step things up a little. On purpose, I started talking about management and, predictably, people started falling asleep.

Then, after lunch, I changed tack. I told them I had just come out of a meeting where a very serious decision had been made.

All salaries for managers were being abolished!

From now on, every manager would be subject to a monthly performance appraisal and then be paid according to the value they had added to, or brought into, the bank that month.

Surprisingly, they believed me and the reaction was immediate, frightening and extraordinary. The room erupted in shouts of indignation and anger. So much so that I feared for my safety.

Thankfully, security escorted me from the building to safety.

But one thing hadn't been checked - What I had told them wasn't true.

But something very real had happened.

For the first time, 2,500 managers had stopped listening to a management speaker and started thinking about their own performance in relation to their reward.

And the bank had just been given a remarkable piece of information about its workforce.

They discovered something that years of management training hadn't managed to uncover: What people really thought about the relationship between performance and money.

It was an experience I never forgot because, for generations, we have largely paid people for one thing: being present.

We pay for hours worked, days attended and, increasingly, hours logged in remotely.

But businesses don't ultimately make money from attendance. They make money from results.

So here's the question I've been asking myself ever since: If we want better performance, why don't we simply pay for better performance?

Not talk about it.

Not train people to death about it.

Simply pay for it.

 

If you would like to talk to me, please call me on +27 82 465 5481 or email me on mark@meritbusiness.com

 

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