[Dennis Kalma]

Ok, having spent most of my life as an executive, my bet is that he didn't really think all this through, was trying to do a good thing and build good will and really didn't consider the impact on his staff. One of the challenges of being higher up the pecking order is that you tend to see things in broad swaths and not really get the detail view. The other thing is that your pay packet is a lot bigger and taking a small chunk out of it, especially when you can rationalize it may actually pay off in the long term by virtue of more sales etc etc, is not seen as a big deal.

Now what to do about it. It undoubtedly depends on the personality of the guy. If he is pretty open and you see him a lot, then drop in and chat about what is good about the idea first....remember conflict resolution. Step 1 - defuse emotion, Step 2 - review areas of agreement, Step 3 - delineate areas of disagreement or concern....Step 4 - deal with them on an issue by issue basis.

So I'd drop in and say what a great deal things were, how it would be good in the long term etc etc, however, it does sort of cause an upset in the commission scheme, had he thought of how best to deal with it if it is material in an individual case? And then go from there.

If he is a prick, then just move on. You may get the chance later when you deal with the commission/goals process to raise it again, but likely not.

My view is that a really classy company would take the corporate hit but not disadvantage any particular individual. A sort of classy company would wait and see if it made a material difference to the commission pay out and then decide what to do about it. An OK company would wring their hands and give out brownie points, a nice tee shirt or other corporate consideration and a crappy company would just tell you to suck it up and live with it or leave.

Dennis