All Of What We Do Is Really About People

Everything we read about and encounter is about some sort of digital transformation. It could be a business transformation, buying/selling, or even social transformation. Technology and automation takes a greater part of our lives. Years ago, usually it was scientists and engineers that talked about algorithms–now they pervade every aspect of our lives. Too often, we seem more comfortable communicating with or through our digital surrogates.

As I write this article, I have seen a news report of robots now able to reproduce themselves and an article touting DHaaS, Digital Humans as a Service.

We seem to be on a path to making people redundant, which causes one to think what our purpose becomes.

With that as a background, all of what we do is really about people. Think about it for a moment, is there a business that exists without a single person being involved in the business? All buying decisions are, at their core driven by human beings. While we may provide e-procurement alternatives, automatic repurchases, underlying these buying decisions one will always find a human decision.

Yet, too much of what we do seeks to remove the humanity from the process. We automate our customer engagement strategies. Employees become de-personalized widgets.

But we cannot deny the humanity of business, buying/selling, and society.

Buying is largely influenced by emotions. Uncertainty, fear, confusion, risk all dominate purchase decisions. Buying groups for complex B2B decisions involve larger groups. Aligning their interests and agendas is, increasingly difficult. Buyer regret is increasing, a human emotion (Imagine bots having regret.) Emerging concepts of sensemaking and identity are all about the human-emotional aspects of getting work done.

Within our companies, we see decreasing employee engagement, decreasing tenure, decreasing employee satisfaction. And we read everyday about the Great Resignation. In the face of all of this, we see companies struggling to find enough workers–people–to support their growth.

While we know business, buying/selling is all about people, we do so much to remove the humanity from what we do, how we lead and engage our employees, how we lead and engage our customers.

One wonders, “What would happen if we started caring? What if we adopted service oriented behaviors? What if we thought about empathy?”

We don’t have to wonder about this, as we look at consistently high performing organizations, we see purpose, values, culture are the drivers to their success and performance. These organizations create workplaces where their people are valued. Where customers, suppliers, and the community are valued.

Business success is about people. Why do we have do continue to remind ourselves of this?