Business is People

As I was writing rough notes on this topic, the iconic scene from the 1973 classic Soylent Green flashes into my memory. Charlton Heston screaming “Soylent Green is people!” as they drag him away.  First, if you don’t know this reference, I highly recommend you IMDB the movie, then find a way to watch it.  Great memorable Sci-Fi flick!  Hopefully giving away the twist ending won’t discourage you from watching it and the M. Night Shyamalan style ending.

While “Business is People” isn’t quite the same level of grim revelation, it serves to kick off a discussion about a core aspect of business that I learned many years ago.  Business isn’t just what you produce or who you produce it for.  Without the people that are in your business, you have no long term success.

Business is People.  Period.

You might wallow on in existence, but you won’t grow where you want to, you won’t be able to fully enjoy life when you don’t have trusted people who can keep your business going while you are on vacation.

Business is People.

I’ve watched companies grow that have taken this to heart, treated people well from the top down.  I’ve seen the mighty fall when this is ignored and people are treated as a commodity that can be replaced at a whim. The interesting insight is, it’s not just the higher compensated, the higher educated and experienced people you need to take care of.  It’s all positions, all levels, all tenure. The person who greets your clients and visitors has as important of a role in your company image as the senior programmer who is building the solution.  Your accounting employee and your collections calls, they all have impacts on how your company is perceived in the market. If you don’t take care of all employees, you will be eroded from the inside and not know it till it’s too late.

Business is people, all those in your business are important.

If you treat your employees with disrespect, they might tell you what you want to hear while you are in earshot.  But you can be sure, when they are blowing off steam around the water cooler, or the Keurig machine, at home with their family or having a beer with friends, they are throwing you under the bus and backing up to make sure the job is done.
And guess what?  You probably deserve it!
Take a step back, if you haven’t treated them with respect, haven’t EARNED their respect, you have put yourself in this position.

Business is people, earn their respect.

I worked with a CEO that had an employee he felt was disrespecting him.  Now I don’t condone disrespect, especially if it’s public or malicious.  The reason for the disrespect aside, I asked this CEO had they, the CEO, given respect?  Had they, the CEO, worked to earn respect from this employee.  This CEO actually had the audacity to tell me, I’m the CEO, my title is all I need for respect, I don’t need to earn it from my staff.
I was floored.  I just don’t think that way.  People are people no matter their role, background, upbringing.  As long as they haven’t been trying to do things with malice, they deserve respect.

Any CEO, leader, manager, anyone… should never think a title brings respect without earning it.  Sure, some people will fear you if you are the boss or have a big title.
Yep, it might even look like respect.  But it’s not.
Real respect can only be earned in how you treat people, daily.  Real respect will allow you to make a mistake and those who respect and trust you, will forgive you and not use it as a reason to trash your name.

Getting back to the core issue that Business is People.
Great companies of any size are built on their people.
If you have shown respect, you will get respect.  Your people will trust you.
With respect, you gain loyalty and can grow past the many challenges growing and running a business throws your way.

If you don’t earn respect, you will have high voluntary turnover, where they choose to leave.  As you lose employees, you lose institutional knowledge, and key client relationships can walk out the door.  It’s extremely expensive to rehire, retrain, and get your clients to trust your people again.

High turnover also creates unneeded fear in the employees who stay, what is going on they aren’t aware of?  In the absence of information, people are experts at making up amazing stories!

Be respectful, let your employees know you care and they are not just another automaton that you don’t really value.  The reality is when people leave, no matter how much you think you are getting an honest answer out of them during an exit interview, most people will not tell you the culture of the business which didn’t respect them as an individual was the reason.

See if these sound familiar:  “I found an opportunity I just couldn’t turn down”,  “The new job so much closer to my house I couldn’t pass it up”, “It’s not you guys, I loved working here”.  Employees are savvy, they know if they leave telling the complete truth of why they are leaving in this small world we all live in, it could come back to bite them.

Studies show that the number one reason people leave is not money (as it commonly thought), it’s their manager/boss/leader.  If you have a high voluntary turnover in a company, start to look at who is leading and could be affecting morale.  Low respect usually equals low morale.

Business is People, high turnover is a warning sign.

There was an organization I worked for that had a leader who did not believe in respect for all those in the organization.  I worked to put myself in a position so the staff was insulated from this leader.  Over the years, I worked my way up and eventually ran the organization.  I was part of an incredibly effective team of individuals who had each other’s backs, were accountable.  We each worked for years to earn each other’s respect, through good and tough times in business.  Over time, the owners of the business and I did not agree on the companies direction.  With influence from the previous leader, who did not respect people and who also had significant ownership, we eventually parted ways.  I warned the owners of the impact of treating staff like a commodity instead of respected individuals.  If they didn’t treat the staff with respect, they would not be long for staying and the business could suffer.  With the impact that your employees have on your clients, if you lose key people, you lose key clients, which makes more employee worried, they leave, client agreements are breached, clients leave, it a domino effect.  Sadly, 6 months later, the company shut its doors.  So many were displaced, the hard work of years of effort was wasted.

It is a sad, tragic real world example that Business is People.  No matter how great your contracts are, they can be broken.  No matter how loyal or stable your clients are, they will cycle over time.  Your employees are your #1 asset, you need to treat them well, with respect.

Don’t treat this lightly, Business is People.

If you walk away from this post with only one thing, don’t take your employees for granted.  Respect them, show them they matter in your business.  Don’t demand their respect, earn it every day in every action!

@RichDobry
Attitude is Everything!
yourattitudeiseverything@gmail.com