Business Insight Zone

In response to The three-part litmus test, for social media and everything else, Woody Williams left a comment today that hit home:

Curious: In the tripartite litmus test, where do people count? Internal people — owners, directors, managers, employees — are they “enterprise value?” People (internal) could help differentiate the organization, but is that it?

Organizations undertake many things to improve people and place related processes, infrastructure, and the like. The goal is usually happier, more optimistic, committed, and productive people. Is that worth a piece of litmus paper?

My response: absolutely — and the best companies fold in people considerations to everything they do.

Woody’s in good company: in this Inc. magazine interview, Jim Collins likewise stresses the importance of people in business.

Whether you’re running a business in 1812, 1886, 1925, 1950, 1975, 2000, 2050, I see nothing to contradict the principle that who comes first and what comes second, for a very simple reason: If you cannot predict the what, you have to be able to do a good job with the who, because the what is going to be constantly shifting.

Think about your own life, your own career. You’ve known people who were reliable under all circumstances, others who were unreliable, and many in-between. The same holds if we replaced reliability with creativity or empathy.

Who do you turn to if you’re starting a new venture? Or turning a company around? Or when you’re in bad trouble? Ideally, you’ll know people who are reliable, creative, and easy to work with — and who have the domain expertise you specifically need.

But failing that — unless the matter at hand is something like heart surgery — I’ll take the reliable, creative, and empathetic ones, not the subject-matter experts.

Get the who right, first.

Category: Management