Make This Simple Shift To Unleash The Potential of Your People

Estimated reading time: 5-6 minutes

It’s safe to say that we’ve reached an era where people are recognized as important in business. The days of arguing that HR needs a “seat at the table” are over, and it seems like workplace and people trends are consistently surfacing and evolving.

The great resignation, quiet quitting, resenteeism, presenteeism, managing a multi-generational workforce, and countless other “people problems” just go to show how much of an emphasis is put on attracting, retaining, and engaging talent these days. It’s good thing, but are we actually just hanging out on the surface?

There is no company in the world that doesn’t know that people are important. So why do we still see and hear of companies where employees don’t necessarily have the best experience? Every company has an employee value proposition, will talk about their commitment to a positive employee experience yet we don’t see every company execute that in practice.

In fact, in practice, we still hear of companies with poor cultures, a lack of company values, poor work-life balance. Not to mention token Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, and mental well-being and mental health programs, checking the box without actually attempting to make systemic change within the organisations and how work gets done.

Which leads to the topic of this article. Most companies understand that people are important, but how many actually truly value their people?

They might seem the same, but there is a difference. Understanding that people are important for business success is not the same as truly believing that people are valuable. Let’s dive into it.

The Value of People

People are important to businesses. That’s a fact. You couldn’t name me a business who can operate without people. So it’s safe to say that most businesses understand that people are important in business success. Or more accurately, they understand the importance of having people present to fill roles in a business.

We’ve all heard the term “people are our most important asset”, and similar to an asset, businesses tend to recognize that people are important in the same way that they understand that cash flow, EBITDA, asset allocation, and all that financial jazz is important. If people are an asset, we need proper asset allocation, so we need ways to attract people, retain people, and also while their here, ensure they do a good job (engage people).

So, people are important. However, do you truly value the people you have? That’s a slightly different question.

Companies who truly value their people don’t see people as the most important asset. They see them as their key differentiator. You see, people aren’t just an asset in the business, they are your business. You may ask, isn’t the business the product? Yes, and I would put people up there just as much as the product. This may sound strange but we’re already familiar with the concept:

We think about the biggest companies in the world, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and think of them synonymous with Steve Jobs (or now Tim Cook), Sundar Pichai and Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezoz, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. We understand (in theory) very clearly that people are the product.

“But, Kit, let’s be real, not every employee is a Mark Zuckerberg”. I agree. Not with that attitude.

Crossing The Value Divide

You see, here is the mindset shift that most companies and leaders need to make before they cross the threshold I call The Value Divide. Where on one side, we have “people are important” companies, who continue to push out people initiatives but never seem to hold, engage, or get the best out of their people. On the other side of a great chasm, we have companies who have cross the divide into truly valuing the power of people, and reap the rewards.

It’s not about being able to have the next Mark Zuckerberg, it’s the belief that every person can be.

Let me clarify, I don’t think that each of us has the potential to be a world-changer like Mark Zuckerberg. But as leaders, if you claim to truly value your people, you have to believe that each and every employee you have is innately and uniquely valuable. You must believe each individual has the potential to bring something to the table that is so unique and innate that nobody else can. And the belief that whatever it is, can alter the trajectory of your company forever.

That is what it means to truly value your people. For us to cross the value divide, we need to move from “people are important to the business”, to “people are the business”.

What Does Truly Valuing People Look Like?

If you truly believed in the innate and unique value of each and every individual, how you treat people will change. Let’s look at why, and how, things change in a couple of different circumstances.

Workplace Initiatives

If you believed that people in general were just ‘important’, you might go for some generic “people solutions”. Generic engagement initiatives, events, stock the pantry, flexi work arrangements. When you look at work, nothing do overly special needs to be done, why would you? People are there to do work, so just let them.

But if you believed that each individual is uniquely valuable, how you do everything changes. No more generic people solutions, but listening to the needs of every individual, “what do you need to be at your best at work?”, is the golden question. You may make individual concessions, but what you will find is that it is too difficult to do so. So instead, you start to look at policy and process: If you can’t be individualizing every work experience, perhaps the structures around work experience needs to change to be able to fit individual needs.

How Work Gets Done

If you look at people as cogs in a machine, just put them there and let them do their work. Maintain machinery when it needs to be maintained, upgrade when needs to be upgraded, replace when it needs replacing.

If you truly value your people, and believe that each individual is uniquely valuable, how you treat them changes. Their not just a cog, but an individual who’s perspectives, skills, and strengths, offer something special. All of sudden, their not just a cog, but someone who’s opinion matters.

How many times have we been in meetings where 80% of people don’t say more than Hi’s and Bye’s? These are cogs. “Turn up to the meeting, so you know what’s going on, so you can do your job”. In cultures where people are valued, opinions are valued. People aren’t just there to listen and do their job, but their opinions matter, their input is not only valued but it is required - regardless of their seniority.

So, if you want valuable contributors in your

Approach To Authentic Leadership

Right about now, you might be thinking to yourself, “that sounds like a lot of work”. Well, you’d be right. We are talking about unlocking people as the key differentiator for all business. As something that matters more than your product - if you expect it to be easy, you’re sorely mistaken.

You might also find that it seems like an impossible task to be undertaken by HR leaders alone. In which you’d also be correct. You see, “people are important”, means having dedicated functions and personnel to take care of people needs, i.e. your HR department. But truly valuing each and every person is a much larger feat which requires that every person feels like there is someone who looks out for them personally.

The responsibility of looking after each person and getting the best out of them now becomes the responsibility of every leader (and arguably) every person in the organization. Not just a dedicated few people that are responsible for all under the umbrella of “people”. It is the role of each leader to value each person under their charge. To look after them, to see their innate and unique value and draw the best out of them.

That is where the magic happens.

You see for each person to be valuable, they must feel valuable.

For each person to feel valuable, they need someone to believe they are valuable.

When each person has a dedicated champion, a leader who genuinely believes they are valuable, that’s how we cross the value divide.

Which One Are You?

Every leader and company understands that people are important to business success. But not every company believes that people are truly valuable. Which one are you?

Until you make the shift, to believing that each person is innately and uniquely valuable, you will continue to struggle to get the very best out of the people around you - and you’ll be stuck wondering why you’re either always surrounded with sub-par individuals, or why you can’t seem to get more out of your people.

Make the leap, close the value divide.

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help you:

Explore My Relationship Accelerator program for leaders:

→ If you’re still struggling to unlock the potential of your people and would like to make some meaningful change - our relationship accelerator program helps your leaders learn all they need to know about building effective relationships to drive success - in one day. Check it out here.

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