Putting your People First

I recently read an article calling business leaders to pay more attention to ‘the 3P’s’. This interested me, was this phrase simply another management acronym or was there some substance behind what I read? The three P’s stand for: PEOPLE before PRODUCT (or service) before PROFIT (or performance). The sequence and the word before each P is extremely significant. The phrasing states that, if you ensure your people are capable, creative and engaged, they will in turn produce great products (and/or services), which will lead to a successful, high performing business which is profitable and successful.. However how many businesses really think in this way? I have worked for many businesses who engaged far too much ‘top down’ management. They strive for profit and performance without paying attention to engaging their people in doing the right things. I have witnessed businesses pay huge salaries and big bonuses to focus staff on sales and profit targets and while bonuses can act as an ‘extrinsic motivator’, in reality they only provide a short term impact at best. They do not truly engage staff and are soon forgotten. So what does putting your People before Product and Profit mean? In my view if a business is going to truly put their people first they have to do a number of things. For example, they need to: - Understand the innate skills and capabilities of the people they have. - Be clear about what is expected from everyone. - Support their managers and staff to develop skills that will make them more effective in their jobs. - Give their staff as much autonomy as possible trust them to do their job and give them the freedom to make their own decisions. - Involve their staff in decisions that affect them more. - Listen and pay attention to what their staff say, their concerns, and ideas for improvement, and ACT on them. Finally I believe that senior execs need to recognise and understand that the culture of the business is dictated by their behaviour. They must therefore work hard to develop the necessary behaviours to enable them to act as excellent role models, and demonstrate on a day to day basis that they put their people first. If a business truly desires to improve its performance, it must start with its people, their skills, capabilities, motivation and level of engagement.