“Help people achieve what they want in life.” 

A Different Perspective

The answer is not what your team does for you and the company. The answer is what the company does for them. Put this perspective in place, and you will see performance you have never seen before. Here are two tools that will help you think differently:

• Find Out What They Want in Life. Don’t ask yourself, “How do I get the most out of our people?” Instead ask, “How do I get our people what they want most in life?” Find out what your people want. Not what they want in their business lives but in their personal lives. Not what they want for their professional growth, but what they want in life. Not in a superficial way, but in a way that touches who they really are. Find out what they really want in life. Don’t worry about how it relates to your business. That will come.

• Figure Out How to Get Them That. Once you discover what is important to them, figure out how to get them what they want. Don’t focus on what your people do for the business. It’s about what the business does for your people. If they want to learn opera, do an opera event. If someone wants to learn how to cook, hook them up with a chef friend to give them a cooking lesson. When you come across a client or fellow employee who has a manual transmission car, connect them.