Business is a uniquely human endeavour. It is a product of human inspiration, creativity, determination, and perseverance. Without these human elements, there is no business. At all. Ever. Too often, we hear business managers tell their people that "without the business then we would have no livelihood". Actually, it is the other way around. Without people, then the business would have no life. It is the people that enable the business, bring it to life, sustain it, and give it the energy it needs to prosper. The way we account for people in the business, though, does not reflect this. Our accounting processes are broken. In our accounts, people are only recorded as a cost and a liability. Managers might talk of 'people being their best asset', but when their annual accounts come out, the balance sheet is bereft of any people assets. They are only wages and salary costs, and leave and pension liabilities. Where do we show the asset of people's energy, inspiration, creativity, and potential? These are too hard to measure, and even harder to value, so the accounting scorekeepers ignore them. Yet, these are the beauty of humanity, and we all know they are insanely valuable. If we value humanity, then as business leaders, we should not be merely focussed on the people costs and liabilities. If we don't value humanity, then we don't value business. When we lose the focus on humanity then we stop building our businesses. We merely sustain them. Without the potential of people, then the business itself has no potential. The best business leaders focus on the potential of people. They focus on the energy, drive, ambition, and aspiration of people and tap into that to nurture their business growth. They don't see 'sales' as supporting their employees, they see their employees as enabling their 'sales'. They grow their business by growing their people. These are the leaders we remember, and these are the leaders that build impactful brands. These leaders know that the true cost of people is not their wages, salaries, and leave entitlements. The true cost of people is the lost business potential if they fail to nurture, enable, or facilitate the creativity, innovation, determination, persistence, and resilience of their team. The H Factor System Home PageThe H Factor system is designed for business leaders to nurture the contribution of their team members to their business objectives. The Home page is your business story about why your business exists, the brand you want to create, the things you need to build on your success, and your values. It enables your people to see the bigger picture behind their work, and identify their contribution to it.
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The H Factor system was designed around natural human behaviour, and the drivers of business value. Contact us today to arrange a demonstration.
How much of our day is spent on the BS in our workplaces? BS comes in many forms, but it usually involves people being very busy rather than people being very productive. In many workplaces, it becomes a part of the culture where being seen to be busy is far more important than being seen to be contemplative, reflective, creative, or thoughtful.
As work becomes more and more about doing tasks, then people start to have more and more stuff that needs to get done. It piles up and sometimes overwhelms us. We stay late getting it done. We jump from one task to the next. We never really celebrate finishing stuff - in fact, we might not even want to admit that we finished something because we might get something else to do. Or worse, somebody might think that we're not busy, not important, not useful, or no longer contributing. We get judged on, and judge others by, busy-ness. For some it has even become a status symbol. Yes, we often hear our workplace leaders talk about things like engagement, happiness, and making a difference. Then these things become someone's task, and the cycle goes on. Meanwhile, according to research, less than a third of us feel genuinely engaged at work, believe that our work actually makes a difference, or obtain any sense of fulfilment from our jobs. It's no longer fanciful to imagine a future of robots and artificial intelligence, where we have amazing machines that can do most of our busy-ness for us. Will we care whether the robots and machines are happy? Probably not. We are not robots. While doing tasks and keeping busy my make us feel important (for a while), safe that we will keep our job (for a while), and maybe even profitable (for now), the cost of our busy-ness obsession is mounting up. In many instances we are ignoring our emotional needs - because we undervalue them and in our busy-ness paradigm we see them as annoying distractions. Organisations that embrace their humanity actually perform better. They embrace human traits like creativity, contemplation, social connection, and vulnerability. These are the organisations that are solving big problems. They're the ones inventing and disrupting. They're the ones attracting great talent. They're the ones people want to work for. At some point, someone in these organisations called out the BS. They decided that taking the time to contemplate, reflect, create, and think was more important than being busy. |
AuthorAndrew writes about the joys and challenges of entrepreneurship, workplace culture, and leading people. Archives
August 2024
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