People are not human capital, but human beings.
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Attention as a success factor — Why organizations should keep an eye on their employees
“I was so angry that the CEO was far away, in a tower or somewhere looking at spreadsheets, and decided to close this 85-year-old yogurt factory. Spreadsheets are lazy. They tell you nothing about people, they tell you nothing about communities.
Unfortunately, too many business decisions today are made based on numbers and Excel sheets.”
Hamdi Ulukaya in his TED Talk (2005) talks about how he came to buy an old yogurt factory in Upstate New York that a large food company (Kraft Food) was selling off. Even though he had no money. He looked at the sad factory and what he perceived were the 55 people whose working lives were about to be closed forever.
Attention means caring for others
To be given attention makes one happy, elated, feeling good. Not receiving attention, being disregarded, hurts. This is true in all areas of life, including the work environment.
To pay attention means to care about others.
To care means, according to the dictionary, to take care of a person or thing and to make an effort to help or care for someone or something. Furthermore, it means to give someone or something one’s ATTENTION and to interact with someone.
When you pay attention to someone, you observe him, listen to the person, and take note of him or her. When you do not pay attention to someone, you act as if you are unaware of the person, if she is invisible or not important
Do you want to be treated in a rude, meaningless, unnoticed way?
Good leadership is service
How do we deal with employees and customers? Do we give them sufficient attention? This includes treating one’s counterpart with respect and appreciation.
An organization is not a machine, but a living, breathing organism. With people who are not “human capital” but “human beings”.
Research has found that many employees do not feel connected to their work, the body shows up for work, but the heart does not come along. The motivation, the sense of purpose, and being a…
