In the first blog of this series, I introduced the idea of three principles for building a world class, profitable organization: People, Process and Product. Let’s take a look at the first of these 3 P’s: PEOPLE.
PEOPLE
As I mentioned in the first article, I learned long ago that people are a company’s greatest asset. To further clarify, it’s not just people, it’s the right people, placed in the right positions where they can utilize their strengths not their weaknesses.
Having played team sports all my life, and as a leader, I’ve realized that building a winning company is not much different than building a winning football or other sports team. You wouldn’t expect your all-conference offensive guard to step in and play quarterback and, conversely, you wouldn’t expect your quarterback to play defensive line with the same amount of success. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen companies make this mistake. It can be for a variety of very justifiable reasons that employees are put into positions that don’t play to their strengths, but at the end of the day, this philosophy will not find you preparing your organization to win.
A great tool I use to identify an employee’s core strengths is a DiSC evaluation. After an assessment is completed, the DiSC results place people into four categories based on their personality and style – Dominance, Influencing, Steadiness and Compliance. Once an employee completes the evaluation, it not only gives you, as a leader, an indication of their strengths, but it also tells you with whom they will naturally get along and with whom they will not. You’ll also learn what motivates them or, more importantly, what demotivates them. Have you ever wondered why Engineers and Salespeople usually don’t see eye to eye? A DiSC evaluation makes it perfectly clear that they are two opposite personalities who see the world very differently. Once employees not only understand who they are, but who others are, and why, you will suddenly find yourself leading an organization that will work together based on their differences. I have found this to be a great alignment tool!
Organizations can be grouped into three leadership or cultural styles as well:
Autocratic or Aggressive Culture – “I am the boss, just do what I say and do it now.”
Passive or Defensive Culture – “We have always done it this way, so why change?”
Constructive Culture – “We all have a voice and can influence change.”
Leaders need to ask themselves a few questions – what type of leader do they prefer to be, what type of organization do they want to lead, and what pays bigger dividends? Companies that truly have a culture of people first adopt a constructive style of leadership and instill that into their culture. Focus on building people first and then let the people build the business. Turnover will drop, and productivity and profits will increase!
In the next blog of the series, we’ll take a look at the PROCESS of the 3 P’s.