There is one common
denominator that all companies have. Whether
they’re large or small, no matter if they are super successful or struggling
for survival, they all have one thing in common - people.
As a business owner, unless
you’re working by yourself from home, your company depends on people. Employees, customers, vendors and service
providers, they are all people.
Understanding how people
think, what they want and need, what they like and don’t like, what motivates
or demotivates them, and what challenges and obstacles they are dealing with,
that’s your business. As a hands-on
small business owner, first and foremost, you’re in the people business. Your company’s success or failure will be
determined by how well you do at mastering the people business.
Believe it or not, the most
commonly overlooked area inside most small companies is the people side of the
business. Larger companies have a human resource
manager whose job is to focus just on the people within the business, but in a
smaller company, it’s not cost justifiable to have a HR manager. Since the duties then fall back to the
business owner, who is already wearing multiple hats, often the administrative
side of people management gets delegated to a clerical assistant or an office
manager. The day-to-day motivation,
development, and performance management often gets overlooked by owners and
managers because they just don’t have the time in their day.
If you had just spent $150,000
for a new piece of equipment, would you invest additional money on performing
regular maintenance on the machine? For
most, the answer is yes, of course! By
maintaining the equipment, it operates at peak efficiency. On top of that you
have fewer breakdowns and the machine will have a longer lifespan. People are not that different from machines. They have needs and desires and need regular
attention or they are not going to last long or operate at peak performance. Over
time, without development and motivation, people get stagnant or burned out. They
may develop issues such as tardiness or absenteeism, or they may just quit
altogether.
As a small business CEO,
be careful not to make the mistake of overlooking the importance of investing
time and resources into developing the people side of your company. A well designed and executed people attraction,
selection, compensation, administration, training, development, motivation and
retention process is the key to successfully managing the employees that your
company depends on for your very survival.
By Todd W. Meyer, President/CEO of MMI Financial Group, Inc.
August 11, 2014
