Grow Your People

The most valuable asset for any successful organization is the quality of the people on its team.  Growing companies need growing people.  Even though everyone is different with various skill sets and talent, the very best companies help their people maximize their abilities and consequently, their contribution to the success of the business.  Effective companies will grow their people by doing the following:

• Create the Right Environment– The right environment begins with the people already in place. If a company always makes it a priority to hire the best, the right environment will be a self sustaining force because A players help everyone they touch.  When Phil Jackson first starting coaching the Chicago Bulls, he begin implementing a new offense that would require superstar  Michael Jordan to share the ball more and probably score less points.  Jackson told Jordan, “You’ve got to share the spotlight with your teammates because if you don’t, they won’t grow(Jackson, p.82, emphasis mine).”   Jackson knew that Jordan could make everyone else better.  Excellent people make everyone around them excellent.
• Provide Learning Opportunities– Continual education is a fundamental requirement for anyone who wants to continually improve and get better.  Successful companies know this and they provide for their people to continually invest in themselves.   “In order to keep your company competitive and your people loyal, you must grow them through education and coaching.  And this investment in people is the biggest single predictor of a company’s ability to beat its direct competitors and the overall market, based on exhaustive research done by Laurie Bassi, co-author of Good Company: Business Success in the Worthiness Era(Harnish,p.75).”
• Coach Them– Every successful person has had an excellent coach or many coaches in life. Effective coaches spend quality time with their people, teaching and leading by example.  Coaches, who through their experience have learned valuable lessons, pass on  these lessons to their people and save them enormous amounts  of trial by error. Business leaders coach their key managers and train their managers to coach their key people.

Growing your people is the key to successfully growing your business.

*Jackson, Phil, Delehanty, Hugh, (2013, 2014)  Eleven Rings

* Harnish, Verne, (2014), Scaling Up