How to Get Your People to Fall in Love With Your Company

What’s more important in your business, profit or your people?

One of the biggest problems in small to midsize businesses today is that the story we tell and the way we act are not connected. We tell the world what’s important to us – people, products, services, customers and quality – but then base every decision on profit.

If people are the most important part of your business, here are 5 suggestions for truly focusing on your people (and maybe getting them to fall in love with your company):

• People want to be good at something. If you train them in a specific area so they’re really good at it, they’ll fall in love with your company.
• People want to feel important. They want autonomy. Take risks with your people and give them responsibility.
• Purpose drives passion. People want to join something that is significant. If you can give them purpose, they’ll stick with you.
• Values drive behavior. Behavior is a reflection of your values. If you understand the difference between a value problem and a behavior problem, you will understand how people fall in love with companies that have high values, where the message inside is consistent with the message outside. Make sure that your people understand your values.
• Vision – where are we going? It’s been said that only 5% of the people in most organizations understand the vision. If only 5% understand it, then only 5% can make decisions, only 5% are fully engaged and only 5% are going to be with you during the tough times. Talk about where you’re going. People want to know where the future is.

Do you want to know the last thing to talk about?

Money.

Money never draws the best people. Only 3% of the population is money driven. The rest of us are money satisfied. Money is a tool to determine if people have been treated fairly.

If money is the topic of conversation in your company, then the things I mentioned above don’t exist.

Here’s a video of my talk about this topic in the February LPBC: