Capitalist Note: Will all Manning fans please stop emailing me to correct the spelling of his first name? I spelled it PAYton due to the content being discussed.  I thought about putting PAY in all caps, but then decided to go subtle.  That was lost on those that love them some PAYTON...

That's right - I said it. Payton Manning will pimp promote your HR Department for $10,000.  It probably will cost more than that, but the point is that Payton Manning is for sale.  He's got you humming your grocery list to the Nationwide Insurance jingle.  He's doing horrible commercials with a fame-hungry Papa John's founder.  Let's face it, it moved from being a smart businessman to dramatically overexposed at least a year ago.

But all those commercials pale in comparison to what happened after Manning and the Denver Broncos won the 2016 Super Bowl.  More from the Chicago Tribune:

"Step aside, Cam. This Bud's for Peyton.

After winning the Super Bowl on Sunday night, perhaps his last game before retiring as one of football's most accomplished quarterbacks, Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning said — not once, but twice — that he plans to drink a lot of Budweiser in celebration.

"I want to go kiss my wife and my kids. I want to go, you know, hug my family. And I'm going to drink a lot of Budweiser, Tracy, I promise you that," Manning said to CBS reporter Tracy Wolfson as confetti fluttered from the sky.

Manning later reiterated the same message from the podium after triumphing over Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. The NFL's top pitchman shilling for Budweiser prompted speculation on social media as to whether Manning was paid. The answer: Not exactly, but Manning's shoutout was nonetheless a savvy business move.

"Hi Internet. For the record, Budweiser did not pay Peyton Manning to mention Budweiser tonight. We were surprised and delighted that he did," said Lisa Weser, spokeswoman for Anheuser-Busch InBev, on Twitter.

But Manning does own a financial stake in two Anheuser-Busch distributorships, a fact confirmed by Harry Schuhmacher, publisher of respected trade publication Beer Business Daily. And Manning's done this before: After the 2014 AFC Championship game, Manning pined aloud for a Bud Light at the postgame presser."

The name of my blog is the HR Capitalist.  So I can't hate on this too much, except to say that it felt forced. The kind of forced that makes you kind of vomit in your mouth a little bit, especially the second time he said it, when he mentioned he wanted to be with his family, talk to God and drink beer - then remember he was supposed to say Budweiser, and came back around to get that in.

Yuck. Everybody get a shower - the scrub bush is on the counter.

But let's look at the upside!  For the right amount of money, you can get your HR department in on the hundreds of interviews that Payton will give before he officially retires.  I suspect you doing product placement for your HR Department could go something like this in the interviews to come:

Jim Nance: "Payton, what a finish. What are you thinking about retirement?  Seems like a great time to make that call."

Payton Manning: "Well Jim, I'm just excited right now with the win.  As for all that other stuff, I just want to spend some time with my family, talk to the man upstairs and drink a lot of Budweiser."

Jim Nance: "Well Payton, you've certainly de...."

Payton Manning: (cutting Nance off as he remembers the suitcase of money your HR department gave him) "Jim, I've got to add that it's been on my mind to talk to the <insert your company name here> HR team about my options.  I hear they're great at career counseling and have counseled many employees on the right time to walk away before they they get their ### fired."  Good people over at there on that HR team."

Jim Nance: "HR?"

Payton Manning: "Family, God, HR and Budweiser, Jim.  Don't push me."

<awkward pause, even for Nance - who writes poems about Manning during the offseason>

Talk to finance today and get your offer in to Payton Manning.  The clock's ticking, but you can still get this done.

As a general rule, the communications coming from our leaders is sanitized.  Big messages, little risk.

But every once in awhile, a leader has to make an example of someone.  When bad behavior happens, the risk of doing too little is that your employees are watching and don't think you care enough, or are brave enough, to step out and call an issue - or someone - for what it is.

Fail to be brave when required, and your good to great employees - the ones that really matter - start to think of you as an average leader.

Example last night from the world of sports - Bill Self, head basketball coach at Kansas University, had a player do something not consistent with the values of his organization, and he went above and beyond to tell people inside and outside the organization what he thought about it.  More from ESPN:

"Brannen Greene's soft, two-handed dunk at the end of Kansas' rout of Kansas State drew the ire of coach Bill Self on Wednesday night after it gave the Jayhawks an 18-point margin of victory.

Self, disappointed overall in KU's play despite the 77-59 victory, opened his postgame news conference by apologizing to "the K-State team, their program, coaches [and] players," according to The Topeka Capital-Journal.

Calling it "totally classless," Self also addressed Greene's dunk in a postgame radio interview and guaranteed "it will never happen again."

"Brannen Greene, we've put up with him doing some stuff in the past, but that was probably the biggest d--- move I've ever had a player do during a game," Self said in the radio interview, according to the Topeka newspaper. "To dunk the ball like that when the other team -- even their players are going, 'How disrespectful to the game.'

"It certainly showed unbelievably poor sportsmanship."

The word starts with a "D" and rhymes with "Rick".  Did Self go over the line?  Maybe.  But there's upside here as well...

When employees or players go in the ditch with their behavior, you can ignore it and hope it will police itself, but you do that at your own risk.

Or you can go the opposite way - you can send a message loud and clear to your organization that behavior inconsistent with the values of your organization will be called out.

The more public the flogging, the more impact it has.  Self has unbelievable job security at KU, so he has the latitude to do this.  You may think you don't have the organizational muscle to do the same thing.

Funny thing is by doing something similar in a public way, you might make yourself indispensable.  Think about it.

Let's face it, corporate America has an epidemic - the talent in your company is always on top of WIIFM (what's in it for me?), but rarely has an idea of what it takes to be a good teammate.  You know what I'm talking about - the type of teammate who doesn't need credit, will look to promote the work of others and generally do the grunt work so the organization can succeed - without bitching, moaning or looking for kudos.

You and I should create a "Top Teammate in 2016" award at our companies.  I'm going to throw a post in every once in awhile to get you thinking about what the criteria should be and how you could use pop culture to communicate to the organization what you're looking for.

The first profile in the BEST TEAMMATES IN HISTORY series? Meet Goose from Top Gun...In fact, you could call this award the Goose Trophy at your company....

I know.. The young ones don't know who Goose is... Here's your explanation from WikiPedia kids:

Syed Ghouse Mohiddin, Call Sign Goose, was Maverick's R.I.O., or Radio Intercept Officer in the movie Top Gun. While clearly able to enjoy himself and have a good time, Goose was clearly more level headed than his partner Maverick, which is shown through his family and slightly more serious personality. He's a skilled R.I.O. and married to Carol, a fiery young woman with whom he has a son. His signature saying, 'Great Balls of Fire', originated from the 1950s' song he plays on the piano in the middle of the movie.  

What are some of the behaviors that made Goose one of the best teammates in history?  First, he was great at his job.  Technically sound, always competent.  Next, he had the personality where he would let the star (Maverick) roam a bit and had a knack to remind him of the risk, but he did it in a sound way from a relationship perspective.  

Let's dig into his relationship with the star talent (Maverick) and what made him one of the best teammates in history:

1. Goose was always in the background to support Maverick when conflict arose with Iceman - and he did it in a way that didn't steal the show from his star.
2. Goose was content to let Maverick have the spotlight without care for who got the glory. Note that the beach volleyball scene included Goose not taking his shirt off, thus providing more spotlight for the shirtless Maverick.
3. Goose was willing to bring the renegade Maverick into his support structure (family in this case), without fear that Maverick would steal his wife, etc.

All in all, a selfless guy.  Technically sound, but literally a wingman for the ages.  Alas, it all ended horribly for Goose, but that's the sacrifice great teammates make.  My favorite clip below showing Goose mocking the competition so Maverick didn't have to, email subscribers click through for video.

Get your Goose Award going for 2016... 

There's a lot of theory about what management discipline looks like at the corporate level.  But very few of those theories can be captured via a financial chart.

Below is one of the best examples you'll find of management discipline looks like.  Let's start with a question - What company invests for growth, all the way down to making no profit as they've grow the business from 0 to 100B in revenue?

Amazon - chart below (email subscribers click through for the chart)...

The reason I share is two-fold.  First, to share the crazy chart that this is.  They've managed to reinvest in the business to the point that have basically no net income run rate 18 years later with a 100 Billion revenue run rate.  That type of infrastructure investment is what should make FedEx and UPS pretty damn distrustful of Amazon.  60 distribution centers?  You think at some point they just might add planes and vans and cut the middle man out?

Or maybe they leapfrog both companies and invest in drone delivery - something UPS and FedEx will look at, but won't go all in early due to their existing investment in trucks...

Too expensive you say?  THEY'VE MAINTAINED ZERO NET INCOME AS THEY BUILT A 100 BILLION DOLLAR MACHINE.  They'll invest in anything they want to in order to dominate.   The only question is whether putting FedEx or UPS out of business is an efficient use of capital.  Probably not for Amazon.

Second reason I share - you can show this chart to your progressive leaders when you get rejected for whatever professional development request you make this year.  Followed by the quote, "You're no Jeff Bezos, sir."