One of my favorite musicians is Yo Yo Ma. I was listening to an interview of him, he was reflecting on his mentor, Pablo Casals. Casals was probably the best cellist of his time. Yo Yo Ma quoted Casals, “I think of myself as a human being first, a musician second, a cellist third.”
It’s something we must reflect on and constantly remind ourselves of. In the press of everyday business, in our busyness in getting things done. In our focus on scaling, growth, results, too often, we lose the view that we are all human beings first.
We target customers as personas.
We think of customers as faceless objects we move through our sales assembly lines.
We focus on what we need to achieve, losing sight of what it means to them.
We view our people as replaceable workers on that assembly line.
We mechanistically design our engagement strategies around efficiency, focused on our success and goals, and less on the goals of others.
We lose sight of the humanity in what we do.
We hide our fears and uncertainties.
We struggle to hear and understand differing points of view.
We fail to engage our people and our customers in understanding their dreams, aspirations, fears, and uncertainties.
We lose sight of the humans in everything we do, focusing on everything but them.
We are all human beings first. When we neglect this, when we don’t prioritize the humanity in everything we do, we fail.
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