Publications & Resources
May/June 2009
Focus: People - Your Most Important Asset
Don’t Train – Educate!
By Brian Parsley
Training is important. It gives your employees the opportunity to learn techniques and processes. But the key to effective training is to continue it indefinitely, enabling knowledge retention. This means you’re not just training your employees. You’re educating them.
An education will last forever. An education will be passed on to others. By educating your people, you will create a legacy.
I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “Teach a man to fish.” That’s a very impersonal way to look at the value of teaching. Maybe if the expression was “Teach your son or your daughter to fish,” or “Teach your grandson or your granddaughter to fish,” then you would realize the passion you have to have behind your teaching process. You would understand the patience you must have when teaching, and the encouragement you must give to your student in order to transfer your valuable information.
If you’re looking to leave a legacy, then it’s up to you to be able to create it – and then transfer it. The key to extracting long-term results from your employees is educating them. They must understand their purpose, not just their job.
The Real Rewards to Human Capital are Not Just Profits
I know you’re in business to make money. There’s nothing wrong with profits.
There’s nothing wrong with winning. But you should never compromise people for
profits. The benefits are very temporary and always result in failure.
Let’s say you purchase a lawnmower in the spring and use it daily for one year, but you neglect to maintain the machine. After one year you sell it to someone else. They use it a few times, and it begins to become unreliable. Eventually it stops working. They may think the machine is a lemon. They may think there is something inherently wrong with the machine. They are wrong, too.
The problem was caused by the person who purchased, used, and abused the machine by neglecting the maintenance. What do you expect when you take a new machine and force it to work the entire season without checking the oil, changing the filter, or replacing the spark plug? You’re just asking for problems.
This same analogy is repeated each day in offices across the nation, probably in your office. You have employees that want to work hard. They come early and stay late and even take on tasks that are not considered normal job duties. But you neglect their needs. You don’t involve them in the work that affects them. You stop filling their souls with encouragement and support. Why? Because they are just doing the job you paid them to do? Pathetic thinking.
If you invest in a regular lawnmower you may not consider it a big enough investment to take care of it regularly. But if you invest in a $300K one-of-a-kind lawnmower, I bet you would wipe it with a diaper after each use. This philosophy is all in your mind, not in your wallet. Output and profit are important to stay in business, but staying power is more important and it takes commitment to maintain. When you invest in human capital you create a legacy – that’s your real reward. You create and grow a family. It is about people, not just profits. You’ll become richer than any Profit-and-Loss statement can ever show. Profits are the beautiful lawn you’ll have from the hard work of you and your lawnmower. Treat it like you invested a lot, because you have.
Think of your job outside the realm of yourself and the company. Everyone has different reasons for doing things. Not everyone is working because they want to make a million dollars. Most people work because they have to – they have bills to pay or families to feed. These disparities in work ethics and values can greatly impact how you do business. It’s important to discover why your people are working in the first place. For instance, if someone says they’re in a job because they love money, is that bad? Not really.
Money lovers are not evil people. You should also understand that people don’t love money; they love what it does for them. You need to find out why they love money. To find out what makes your people happy at work you must find out what makes them happy in life. Engage in dialog to discover what triggers their happiness. “What makes you happy?” “Why does it make you feel this way?” “Would you like to feel this way each day?” Is this really your job? Of course it is. You’re a leader and that’s what leaders do.
What does your job do for people? If you are in the mortgage industry you don’t just do mortgages, you help people reach their dreams of owning a home. If you work at an airport you are moving the economy by helping business people reach their destinations to stimulate the growth in our country. If you’re a teacher, don’t forget you are impacting the future of many children who will never forget you. Is this idealism? I would challenge you to look deeper into this philosophy.
Every small action will affect others. If you and your people are focused on the real reason you’re in business, you will quickly see how this changes how you operate. The real reward is not just profits; it’s about doing what’s right. It’s about people. Your people. Start today by asking yourself, “Why am I here?” Then ask that same question to your people. Find ways to create memorable experiences with your people. Involve them in active dialog to discover ways to impact your customers’ lives in everyday transactions. It is so easy. You’ll be amazed at the results.
Brian Parsley
is an advisory council member for Customer Feedback Systems LP in
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