Our People Are Our Greatest Asset
And at times, they can be a pain in our… asset.
by Kat Schulte | March 1, 2022
If the great resignation and labor shortages have taught us anything, may it be the value of the HUMANS who work on our teams. We can have an excellent business model or amazing strategy, but without people, we stall out fast. We all instinctively know the value of an amazing employee/teammate/partner – they are priceless. They can make or break a customer experience, our work culture, our lives.
People are literally the greatest asset of any company.
Yet in times of crisis, our first move is all too often to cut costs on labor (i.e. layoffs, trimming benefits, development freezes), and we are finding this way is not working – it is short-sighted and harmful. As people living post-Industrial Revolution, we often default to treating our workforce like machines. We plug them in and expect them to work routinely and predictably without pause or issue. The necessary shift we must make to our worldview is this,
“Humans are not machines. We are something more.”
–Dalai Lama XIV
Manage Like A Boss
Human Skills for People Leaders
Join a cohort of other people leaders to build the toolkit for managing the pain in your asset.
Journey begins May 4.
Good Leaders get messy.
It is tempting to treat people like machines, because when we recognize the humanity in our people, things get… messy. People have feelings, more than we often like. They are illogical and irrational. It feels like it will take time we don’t have to deal with all the “fluff” of people when there is work to do. In short, people can be a pain in our a**. The kicker is that the pain grows when we don’t make space for it. At a very basic level, humans want to be seen and known. When they are, they thrive.
Cover your assets.
There is another – dare we say – better way. Sun Tzu, in The Art of War says, “Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley.” What is more tender and cherished than our own children? What Sun Tzu understood and what we must as well is that when we honor and cherish our people, we go so much further than we could have otherwise.
This work may not feel easy. But it’s worth it. When we recognize our people are our greatest asset, we reap the benefits of the “something more” the Dalai Lama XIV is pointing to. We get their creativity, their perspectives, their energy and passion, their loyalty and heart.
So how do we honor the humanity of our people? How to tend to the pain in our asset?
Equip your people leaders.
70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.” –It’s the Manager And, over half of people leaders have never had any type of management training. It is no surprise we can feel like fish out of water when it comes to supporting our teams.
Manage like a Boss is a dynamic new program developing skills of trust, accountability, communication, and tough conversations for people leaders.
Manage Like A Boss
Human Skills for People Leaders
Join a cohort of other people leaders to build the toolkit for managing the pain in your asset. Journey begins May 4.
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