Log Book Timesheet Blog

How many facilitators does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one - but the lightbulb has got to really want to change...

It looks like a lot of folks in the corporate world have to be taught how to live again. If you treat people like people and not like computers you get to empower them to be their best. People can only perform if you trust them and believe in them. Working with people is risky. Corporations want to avoid risk at all costs... but there is no such thing as a safe investment. Investments provide a return commensurate with your ability to take risks. That is also true with people.

The safest way to be in business is to be a one person band. It is also the most limiting because you cannot delegate or leverage other people's skills.

As you add more people to an enterprise you discover that the productivity of the whole is not increasing as you thought. If you take on an associate you do not double your productivity - rather you just multiply it by the square root of the number of people involved.

The gap is called, red tape, administration costs, bureaucracy, unproductive layers... instead of firing emails across everybody's desktop why don't you walk down the aisle and compliment somebody on their demeanour. You think that's unproductive? Maybe you've got the wrong set of metrics. Your key performance indicators are not performing and you are the last one to find out...

Just like plants need light and carbon dioxide, people need rapport and empathy. Did they teach you that when you did your MBA? How much easier is it to work with friends than enemies?

Some bosses wrongly assume that because their staff spend 40+ hours a week in the next cubicle they can read their mind. But why would they have the business best interest at heart if their own interests are not met first?

People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. Introducing the social balance sheet. Instead of bragging to the stock exchange about your assets and liabilities tell us about how many lives in your workforce you have turned around for the better.

You are not a philanthropic organisation? As an employer you have a social responsibility towards the welfare of all those who offer you their time and expertise. It is in fact your best self-interest. Nothing has changed since the days of Dale Carnegie's book "How to win friends and influence people." Or you could quote the words of Christ: "Love your neighbour as yourself."

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