Ride the Wave:
Reviving the Heart of Business through the People who Touch our Customers!
May 04, 2010 by reginaGreat article where Wave's client Jim Nieves, VP HR, with Omniflight is quoted by the Dallas Business Journal as saying "He thinks business is finally getting it. Who can rightly argue that the people who touch your customers are the most important people in the company, yes my attitudes are humanistic but more importantly it serves business.” Omniflight and Wave have had great success with Omniflight's Social Media Program that focuses on "the people who touch their customers"!
January 31, 2010
Reviving the “Heart” of Business
Does anyone remember when Personnel Departments became “Human Resources?” Wasn’t the term coined to “soften up,” humanize, the sound of a corporate department? It seems, however, the words we chose have had the reverse effect: human resources, literally the flesh-and-blood equivalent of steel and cash? We have all heard the idiom, “Don’t take this personally.” The fact that we have all heard that saying is precisely why people think for the most part We (the people) against Them (business.)
Up In the Air is a hit at the box office. It’s about people who fire people for a living: a stranger out side of the company walks in with a packet and asks you to clean out your desk. It’s said very eloquently but nonetheless the message is very clear: You are an expendable resource.
Visit any web-site or read a business blog and you will find rigid commitment to building “high performance” organizations. What exactly does “high performance” mean? How does business expect to achieve this without the heart and soul of all its stakeholders? In reality, most companies frankly choke originality, curb ambition, and undermine loyalty. Can any business truly be “high performing” and not understand that people need to be recognized as valuable and at their best when coupled with a leader who is known to value truth, courage and honor – or does “high-performing” strictly translate into commercial values: advantage, focus, discipline , accountability and efficiency.
There is nothing wrong with these goals, but do these goals quicken your pulse? Are they “good” in any cosmic sense? ponders Gary Hamel in his article for the Wall Street Journal, The Hole in the Soul of Business. What goals inspire greatness?
Human relations experts agree that people in HR departments who understand there’s no business without people have historically not always been very good at making a business case for the “soft side”. James Nieves, Vice President of Human Resources at Omniflight , www.omniflight.com , has been in the people business for 35 years and has run the people side of the business for companies that produced $900 million in annual revenue. He thinks business is finally getting it. “Who can rightly argue that the people who touch your customers are the most important people in the company, yes my attitudes are humanistic but more importantly it serves business.”
Jim has great stories. An airline had a very happy customer who had flown with them for 30 years. On a routine business trip the customer’s bags were lost twice; he was shuffled from person to person, was insulted and ignored. In the course of 36 hours the company had lost a great customer forever.
At any point of this disaster a person could have saved the relationship. No one cared.
How the heart plays into business has a lot to do with management's style of running the company — how much of the time executives spend leading and how much time managing. Managing has to do with matters of the brain; leading has to do with matters of the heart.
Leading is about making sure, first of all, that the company is engaged in changing people's lives for the better. As employees’ become aware that they have everything to do with the company's success it lights their fire. That inner flame ignites imagination, creativity, and ambition. They feel it's "their" company, and they take ownership of the customers.
Southwest Airline, www.southwest.com, affords us great examples. Yet, what defines Southwest as a culture is how they think of their colleagues. In 2008 Southwest hired 4,000 people. In 2009 they hired 400. The training division of Southwest constitutes a small army. What happened to those people? Jeff Lamb, Chief People Officer, quickly opened up the other departments and the people flowed in to do whatever needed to be done, in a program they called “Loan Your Luv”.
“Management needs to get out of the way. Soft leadership skills vs. hard is an antiquated way of thinking. People are at the heart of all productivity,” states Jeff
Jeff remembers, “I was at Southwest about a month, when a cowbell appeared on my desk. I was spontaneously ushered in the direction of the main hall. A man was returning to work after being out on extended sick leave. We rang him into the building and then we all went back to work. I don’t think anyone who was in that hall will ever forget that moment.”
