The hardest thing about running a business must be figuring out how to manage people. When creating processes, the handoffs in the process, that is the interaction of people and departments are the hardest part. Creating alignment between individual goals and those of the company is endlessly challenging. Think of the creation of an incentive compensation program that really works. And how do we get employees to think and act like owners? Human Resource issues are typically the least appealing and hardest to solve issues for my clients.
It is a cliché to say, “This isn’t rocket science.” Usually it refers to a problem we’re having difficulty solving but the perception is that it shouldn’t be as hard to solve as we’re finding it. In Howard Behar’s book, It’s Not About the Coffee, he relates a story about this expression. The story first appeared on NPR. Maybe you’ve heard it, I hadn’t, but it bears repeating.
The NPR reporter asked rocket scientists what they say is such circumstances. Obviously they don’t say, “This isn’t rocket science,” because what they do every day is rocket science. It turns out rocket scientists say, “This isn’t brain surgery.” Of course, the reporter followed this lead and asked brain surgeons what they say. It turns out, brain surgeons say, “This isn’t nuclear physics.” You know where this is going.
When nuclear physicists were asked this question, they were annoyed. But eventually admitted that when confronted by a problem that is harder to solve that it seems it should be, they say, “At least it isn’t social science.”
The point, of course, is that the toughest problems to solve are those involving the interaction of people. Yep, humans. Or to use another source, and one which dates me, the Pogo comic strip, “We have met the enemy and they are us.”
So don’t feel so bad when you’ve got a perplexing people problem. It really is harder than rocket science, brain surgery and nuclear physics. But they are still problems we need to solve. And therein lays the challenge and the opportunity.
If you can develop/figure out/stumble upon a solution regarding motivating/aligning/getting employees to think like owners, you’ve truly created value. That value, exploited properly, is measured in dollars. Go ahead, you can do it.
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