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A number of years ago I had a Football coach tell me about a time when he had to make a tough decision at work. The current position he had at the penitentiary where he worked in part of the HR department was not really living up to the ambitions he had. The pay was decent while there, but he and his wife were planning on having kids eventually and he wanted a post that provided him with an income stream better suited to a household with multiple children. The position he had made it to in HR was about as high as he was going to make it in that particular department, but he still had to keep moving up if he wanted more money. The fact that he was stuck in place with his current earnings significantly demotivated him for a while and he stopped striving to do better or stand out given how he wouldn’t see much benefit from doing so. After a while he decided that something had to change, and so took a position as a low level corrections officer at the penitentiary. This position was a notable downgrade in terms of pay, and many people thought that he was foolish to move. However, it had something that was far more attractive to him: the potential to be promoted higher and eventually out earn his previous position. Fundamentally, the problem he had with the compensation he was getting was that it did not have the potential to increase significantly regardless of performance.