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Are You Wasting Your Competitive Advantage – Your People?

Are you more worried about sales than you are about fully engaging all of the employees who work for you? As I work with companies across the spectrum, I find that some companies do not understand the need to fully involve the worker, manager, and staff in their work.

When workers are fully engaged, their increased satisfaction, commitment, responsibility, and lower frustration levels result in greater productivity. Further, the quality of work increases, because the worker feels more like an owner or partner.

The owner is the one who picks up the trash off the floor rather than waiting for someone else to do it. Employees, on the other hand, figure it is someone else's job and leave the trash lying on the floor. Having an employee feel like an owner is a mindset issue. It starts at the top and flows down through the managerial ranks. Or at least it is supposed to.

Remember the childhood game, "This is the church, this is the steeple, open the doors, and see all the people?" Who is the church? It is the people, of course, whether they are meeting in a store front or a cathedral. Who is a company? It is the people, of course. You can't have a company without people.

People are a company's competitive advantage. It must start at the top with a managerial philosophy that respects, appreciates, involves, and empowers its work force. Owners then must hire the right people who fit the job, provide them with the proper tools and training, set high expectations, and then let them do their job.

Owners must also ensure that the company's managers are the right people for the job. They too must be trained and given the proper tools to do their job.

More than a few companies complain they can't find good workers. In fact, they claim they must hire anyone who fogs a mirror or has a heartbeat because they need bodies. It is critical for owners, senior execs, and managers to create an environment where workers actually look forward to coming to work, where they excel and almost have to be told to go home.

Not possible, you say? It is not only possible; it is necessary if a company is to be successful. Let me give you a couple of personal examples.

Just out of college, I was promoted to supervisor in an auto assembly plant. I had responsibility for 12 to 55 workers. The senior management (everyone above me) had created a culture marked by lack of trust, production needs over people needs, and the attitude of "if 'they' were smart, they would be supervisors."

That never set well with me, since both my parents were hourly employees at the same auto company, and my brother was an hourly worker at another one. The atmosphere was so discouraging that I dreaded going to bed at night because I knew in the morning I had to go to work the next day. And I was a manager!

Contrast that with my work as an officer and pilot in the Air Force and Air National Guard.Because my supervisors understood the importance of involvement and autonomy, they created a work environment that was outstanding! I looked forward to going to work and you had to tell me to go home. I loved what I did – even with more work challenges than I ever had at the auto company. What was the difference? It was the environment set by senior management.

The second example demonstrates how setting high customer service expectations makes a striking difference. Since 1969 I have had a charge card at a national department store. I started paying my bill in person at the store, partly because I wanted to see how they treated customers. In five years, I have had only one sales associate thank me by name! Normally they just hand the bill back (after asking if I'd like the receipt stapled to the bill) and rap out a perfunctory thank you, usually without eye contact.

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