PEOPLE
“You don’t build a business. You build people, and people build the business.”
Zig Ziglar
Ever since I read about E=mc2 in School, I had told myself back then that one day, I shall work out a relevant formula, which I shall share with the world. So here it is folks, over to you, my 3Ps. “People + Process = Profit”
We live in a world which assesses everyone and everything by balance sheets, has no time and space for patience and shall choose profit over people in a heartless beat. But we should pause and ponder that the genesis of successful Organizations comes with usually one visionary founder, joined hands by a team of dedicated individuals guided by well thought processes. Let us all strive for legacy not headlines, so follow the right path inspiring the rest to follow us and to be constantly reminded of, that success can’t be achieved without good people and great processes.
We have already seen tons of paperwork spewed out in the past few decades on the dilemma of whether we should be Employee (People) Centric or Customer Centric?
This is not even worthy of a debate according to me, because if you take care of your Employees, surely, they shall take care of your Business. But sadly, all our efforts usually are focused on the customer experience, which I don’t deny for you to do, but don’t disillusion your Most Valuable Resource = Employees, by not giving their wellbeing and growth enough thought.
Here are five reasons your Employees are more important to your success than your customers are:
1. Every Employee on your team has influence over some or all of your customer relationships. One disenchanted Employee will shrink your ability to serve customers well, but lots of unhappy human touchpoints will make it virtually impossible for you to succeed. Whatever amount of time and energy you dedicate to Sales, Marketing and Customer Engagement, invest even more in keeping your team equipped, informed and ready to shine.
2. A toxic culture spreads its bad energy well beyond your Company walls into the community. Once your Employer Brand is hurt by poor Employee sentiment and your Company becomes infamous as a toxic workplace, you will have lost a critical competitive advantage that could have powered your growth. (Check your Glassdoor rating to see what Employees and ex-Employees say about you and work on the areas of concern)
3. Your Employees have powerful energy to bring to your organization, if you trust them enough to tap that fuel source. If you are someone who swear by job descriptions and believe that your Employees are merely responsible for fulfilling the tasks mandated by their job descriptions, you are shooting too low and wasting time and money. If you empower your Employees to use their capable brains and hearts on the job, you will see them create breakthrough solutions, collaborate and innovate far beyond what you could have ever imagined. You will have created tremendous value for your Company out of thin air, just by trusting yourself enough to trust the people you hire.
4. Your Employees are the only real connection between a CEO and their Leadership Team at the top of an organization, and the customers in the real world. If that connection is compromised because the top Manager don't trust their Employees enough to listen to them, the leadership team will lose its customers and competitors will swoop in to take advantage of the situation. Listen to your Employees, always.
5. Every good thing that you hope to accomplish in your Company will be powered by the same energy source, the commitment and talent of your Employees. You cannot activate that energy source if your Employees are frustrated and underappreciated. When your culture is in danger, you should have no higher priority than to open up communication channels and put things right before it’s too late.
Manager pretend that Customers are Gold while Employees are Silver, hence disposable and replaceable cogs in the machinery. How wrong they are! When you are in sync with your Employees, your Organization will be nimbler and shall be more agile and responsive to changes in the market. The work will be easier, more satisfying and you won't run into fractured Employee relations. Fear is expensive, and Fear-Based Management left over from the Machine Age has no place in the new-Millennials dominated workplace.
Try trust instead. When you adopt trust as a core leadership philosophy, you will see what a powerful fuel source it is, and your Organization shall never have to look back again.
What is the defining contribution of a Great Manager, when it comes to People Management? They boost the engagement levels of the people around them. According to a Gallup research, only 28% of U.S. Employees are engaged, or are actively pursuing top performance on behalf of their Organizations, and Gallup studies show that this has a direct impact on the bottom line. Engaged Employees lead to engaged customers, who in turn drive a Company’s growth, long term profitability, and stock price.
So, what distinguishes Manager who not only retain valuable Employees but, by boosting engagement, also extract their full value? The answer lies in rejecting conventional wisdom for out of the box thinking, in four core areas of managing people: selection, expectation setting, motivation, and development.
