Have you woken up with a great idea for the office but then had second thoughts about expressing that idea because you’re not sure about the reaction you’ll receive from those in leadership? Well, if so, those days should be behind you and your office if your office wants to keep pace with today’s fast-moving corporate environment.
The days of having workers show up, put in their time, and then just take their paycheck and go home should be over. People have so much more to offer to their companies if the companies demonstrate that they are not only open to those contributions but that those thoughts will be appreciated.
My guest this week is Mike Vacanti. He is focused on the idea of focusing on people and moving them forward at work. He knows that focusing on people can push them on to greater achievements and what is basically a better ROI for companies. He says, “I have a lot of friends that are walking this journey with me. They'll say things like, ‘It’s people-before-profits,’ and I don't really align with that priority. I think it's people-for-profits. My experience says that people that believe in the direction, that believe in the mission of the company and believe in the people that they're engaged with every day, they take that initiative to go do better, to go do their best. And when they are growing, they will bring their best effort, and they will challenge the status quo and not allow the barriers to prohibit them from achieving beyond what we may have put in their performance plan.” People will go the extra mile for the company, and help propel the company forward.
Businesses are made up of their employees. At their very essence, “Business is people.” And Mike says, “When we put our focus on that first, business has the ability to change and adapt and move forward, I think at an accelerated rate. And we're at a time when change happened in the past, change happened at a slower pace. And so it was more predictable, and we could set a five-year plan for a company, and we could execute against that with I think more confidence and clearer vision. But now change is happening at a much more rapid pace. And that change is more significant than before. And so we have to find new ways to navigate through that and bring everybody along at their best if we're really going to grow that corporate capacity. It really is dependent on humans.”
To bring more attention to this idea, Mike has an interesting community called HumansFirst. This group is a consortium looking to make positive change through empowering humans in organizations to create sustainable ways to move forward. Mike says we need to promote employee engagement and employee retention by welcoming people’s emotions and desire to explore and express. When people feel they are growing, they are inclined to embrace change and growth. Leadership is shifting to understand that when an employee is fully engaged and bringing their best effort to move the company forward, those actions should be appreciated. This creates an environment where workers are more open to change because they feel they are growing.
People are created to shine. This should be expected and welcomed in all aspects of life. As companies with vision move to include this in their core values, their futures will only become brighter.
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