Writing · Operations / Property Management
‘’From all businesses, my favorite case on incentives is Federal Express. The heart and soul of its system, which creates the integrity of the product, is having all its airplanes come to one place in the middle of the night and shift all the packages from plane to plane. If there are delays, the whole operation can’t deliver a product full of integrity to Federal Express customers. And it was always screwed up. They could never get it done on time. They tried everything—moral suasion, threats, you name it. And nothing worked. Finally, somebody got the idea to pay all these people not so much an hour but so much a shift, and when it’s all done, they can all go home. Well, their problems cleared up overnight. So getting the incentives right is a very, very important lesson. It was not obvious to Federal Express what the solution was. But maybe now, it will hereafter more often be obvious to you.”
— Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger by Charles T. Munger