One of my favorite economists, Dan Ariely, tells this story about a locksmith. When the locksmith was new at his job, when he was an apprentice, he took a really long time to open a lock. And people saw him working away, struggling, really having a hard time. And often they'd end up giving him a tip. But then when the locksmith got better at his job, when he got so good at his job he could open pretty much any lock in just a minute or two, then his customers started complaining. They were like, you want $200 for that? This took you, like, 30 seconds. And you can see why, right? I mean, we tend to think the harder someone works, the more they should get.
But, it's also kind of ridiculous. I mean, this guy was better at his job. When you call a locksmith, you want to get into your car or your house as fast as possible. And that was what he was doing. He was giving customers what they really wanted. But they felt cheated. His bills suddenly felt unfair.
A lot of companies operate under exactly this principle. They reward people for how much they work. The person who stays late at the office, the person who comes early, they are more likely to get a promotion
But maybe this is wrong. Maybe hard work is irrelevant. Maybe what should matter is what we create. Maybe companies should be measuring our output and not keeping track of our input. What would happen if you ran a company based on that idea? What would that look like?
