SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 170,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: How well does your organization meet the philosophy of “people are our most important asset”?
- We always live that philosophy, and our actions follow it: 20.45%
- We sometimes live up to that philosophy: 52.39%
- We rarely live up to that philosophy: 20.6%
- We never live up to that philosophy: 6.57%
People are important … kind of. While we say people are important, our behaviors don’t always reflect it. Whether it’s the trade-off of making budget versus sending someone to training, not spending time giving feedback and providing coaching because we’re “too busy,” or simply treating people like cogs in the machine rather than as individuals, these decisions and choices send strong messages to our teams. Unfortunately, all of those messages are “you’re not as important as we like to say you are.” My challenge to you: Build the habit of living up to this standard, and start by changing one behavior a day. Your people will thank you and perform well beyond your expectations.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”