Businesses are successful when they create good products or services, but innovation originates at the human element. Ensuring this ongoing contribution is one of the most important efforts a company can make. People are at the heart of business and yet many decisions are taken without considering them.
When businesses look to change, pivot, expand, and so on people will be at the center of these changes, and whilst a product won’t mind if you don’t ask its opinion, your employees see it differently. One of the critical tasks that businesses face, particularly during times of change, is how to engage individuals in the process, and how to ensuring their understanding and alignment with the new goals and direction of the business.
Modern businesses need to take into account the human factor at every stage of growth and change. The preparation and fanfare of the big announcement doesn’t guarantee its viewed and interpreted as intended.
The speed at which data and information are shared is daunting. The flow of information is not linear and many opportunities for it to be influenced by opinion.
When it comes to information, the lack of it can be just as damaging. An actual or even perceived vacuum in clarity of the information being supplied can introduce unexpected consequences. Unanswered questions often lead to people developing their own answers.
Today, there is a need for people-centric development of processes and solutions from the onset. It is a way of ensuring optimum results as a business grows and changes.
The epitome of the knowledge worker comes from a symbiosis of their own creative potential and the needs of the business, and both these complex factors can only work well with an awareness of human needs.
There is a final question to consider based on the impact human considerations have on business performance. How do we balance commercial decisions with the effects these have on the people within a commercial structure? Is balance really the question or does it create a false one or the other dynamic? These are vital questions to answer, and ones that each of us has a powerful stake in getting right.
