It's in your best interests not to let key employees take their experience and talent to a competitor.

It was a dark and stormy Sunday afternoon. I was trying to decide between a pile of McDonald’s paperwork and a really good novel when my best friend and security system went off. Now, the only time Dita barked was when someone broke the plane of the property line.

By the time I got to the front door, a huge white limo was coming to a stop and a man in a full tuxedo was getting out. He walked up to the front door and asked me if I was, in fact, Roy Bergold. He then handed me a large white envelope with no return address, turned on his heel, and was gone. I had never heard of a suit or summons being delivered in this manner. I sat down at the kitchen table and opened the envelope. The first thing I saw was a check with the logo of one of our largest competitors. And then, a four-page letter.

The letter detailed a job offer with extremely generous benefits, including a house, country-club membership, bonus, stock options, a new company car every year, guaranteed use of the company vacation condo, and a cell phone, which was a really big thing back then. The check was for exactly three times the salary I was making at that time. It was dated two weeks from that time for cashing, and the letter contained the name and home phone number of the chairman of the board, if I had any questions or wanted to prove the validity of the offer. I always wondered how they knew exactly what I was making. The check was a signing bonus and my new salary. Classy, huh?

Well, I was extremely happy at McDonald’s and turned the whole thing down, and no one ever knew of it until now. But all of you who have people reporting to them might ask yourselves why a key employee does leave, and what you can do about it. This came up at a recent convention I was speaking at and I was asked what can be done to prevent key employees from even thinking about leaving.
Now, I know there are lots of people floating around the job market in this economy, but I am talking about those key positions that are hard to fill with people you can trust to get the job done.

I knew a guy at a fast food company who had spent practically his whole career there before he left. He was in one of those key positions with very specific talents that are hard to replace. Just his experience alone was tremendously valuable. I guess no one saw it coming and, when he announced his departure, there was the usual flurry of activity to try to save the day. But by then, he had thought it through. So what happened?
I talked to him soon after he left.

Every one of his reasons would have been preventable and answerable if his boss was more sensitive to his needs. That’s one of the key reasons he left: He was taken for granted. He had established such a work...

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