Who would have guessed that “Weekend at Bernie’s” was a documentary.

+1 for this.

Just be transparent and honest with your Team.

Explain to them how the actual budget is out of your direct control. However, also explain what knobs you and your IC can influence (for example being more visible with your Team/IC’s accomplishments at an organizational level).

Also many companies have a “flight risk” box, when calculating raises. Explain to your IC’s that you can hit this checkbox (if the IC wants), but it’s pretty much a onetime use button.

Don’t be afraid to rock the organizational boat. They won’t hold it against you, as you’re just doing your job. Your goal, first and foremost, is to get the most you can out of your Team and money is a good motivator.

If you need other “cheap” motivators:

• have the Team take some time off (paid or unpaid) and watch/stream a movie, with the mic on. Encourage people to trash talk the movie. If you’re in I.T. Office Space is a classic.
• for ~$40 / year, you can get a subscription to Boardgame Arena. Only one person needs a paid account (so they can create games and invite people). It’s all online and they have quiet a selection of games to choose from. King of Tokyo is one of our favorites.
• Introduce “Fantastic Friday”: this is a bit controversial with upper management, but works great with my Teams in the past. Basically, reserve a Friday (bi-weekly/monthly) where your Team can explore whatever topics they want as long as they’ve already finished their current workload. Usually, that disclaimer isn’t necessary, as people will usually want to get their normal work done. The pitch for upper management (if they ask) is that Fantastic Friday is a tool (ie: a canary in the coalmine) to help the Team create accurate estimates and deliver with more reliability. If they over commit, then that Fantastic Friday can be repurposed as a day to “catch-up” (while the Team can understand/refocus on why they didn’t get a Fantastic Friday and pivot accordingly). Furthermore, Fantastic Friday was often used to explore more “outside the box” ideas that actually boosted the Team/companies productivity, but we would not have normally persuded because it was outside our current task’s scope.

edit: added more about Fantastic Friday and fix grammar.

So, to solve the problem of the left not voting them, they are moving further to the right.

I humbly disagree. This seems to be an overly simplified view.

The origins of “the far left” (as I understood it) was basically promoting heavy government involvement. For example, breaking up monopolies, many government subsidied programs for it’s people, which in turn needs higher taxes for it people (so the rich get taxed more, the poor get taxed less).

The origins of “the far right” was the polar opposite. No government involvement. Companies will do “what’s right” in order to compete for profit, less tax on it people, as there are fewer government processes/programs (because people have more personal wealth and can afford the programs that are relevant for them).

“the center” was in the middle of these two extremes. The understanding is that there needs to be some government involvement to prevent companies from going unchecked, not all people have equal chances in life resulting in some people needing more/less government assistance, ect. Yet, also acknowledging that the Stalin form of socialism fights against the basic human desire to “work to make their lives better” and companies (when left to their own devices) cannot be absolutely trusted to do “what’s right” for society.

The problem with the DNC and the 2024 election is that the media has perverted what “the far left” aka Democrats and “the far right” aka Republicans (and this has been going on for years).

Based on your line of “left vs right”, I’d argue that the Republican party is “close to” my definition of “the far right” (fascism aside). Yet, the Democratic Party is actually closer to “the far right” than they are “the far left”. I’d even go so far as to say, that the Democratic Party is far “right of center”.

So, yeah, I totally support moving the DNC towards the center, because it’ll (finally) make the Democratic Party closer to their “far left” ideals.

… just imagine how far we’d get, if it were funneled into improving public education.

I don’t have anything meaningful to add, other than my sincere gratitude to you for posting this.

I haven’t laughed so hard in a good while.