The saying that no person is an island is never more pertinent than in business, as it’s the people within your organisation that fuel your journey to success, as without a team, often, we are unable to achieve our highest goals.
The same is true for our personal lives, yet, when it comes to business, your most important resource are the people you surround yourself with to assist you in achieving your mission.
Of course, many factors come into business success, for instance, having a decent business strategy and marketing plan are core requirements – as you can have the most talented people in the world, with the wrong strategy, and your business won’t get very far… but one would hope that as a result of having such good talent within your business that your marketing plan and business strategy would evolve beyond what you could do yourself.
See, as an entrepreneurial leader, we often feel the need to do everything ourselves – yet, there’s a limit to how much one person can achieve on their own – as we are all inherently limited in our abilities, meaning there are skill and knowledge gaps that could do with being filled, plus, it’s helpful to have a team made up of people with different natures.
For instance, if you are a visionary and creative leader, it might be useful to have a more pragmatic and grounding assistant that helps keep you focused in terms of tangible results, rather than being in a perpetual state of creativity.
As, fundamentally, there are multiple components of attracting success and abundance into your life; the law of attraction does respond to your thoughts and feelings, yet, it can only truly help turn your desires into physical manifestations when you take action – and a lot of people get caught up in the dreaming phase of the creation process, meaning, it can be helpful to have a team to balance them out.
Indeed, even the athlete can’t do it all on their own. Okay, the athlete might be the person that uses his or her legs to compete in the race, yet, they are likely to have at least one coach, a nutritionist, a physiotherapist, and someone to help them focus their mind.
A lot of business owners have heard the phrase “our employees are our most important asset” and might even say the phrase themselves, yet when you see how they go on to treat their employees – one has to question just how much business leaders truly embrace and understand the power of the people in their business.
One of the core issues when it comes to people management is that business owners don’t empower their staff with the authority, trust or value they command – often undermining their efforts and treating them as second rate; almost like a servant and master hierarchical relationship.
You just need to watch an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares to see how prevalent this is, at least within the food industry, as owners often feel they know best – but just because you pay someone’s salary does not make you superior in knowledge or value.
Indeed, Robert Kiyosaki who teaches about wealth creation insists that he wants to be the most stupid person on his team; as he wants to surround himself with the best talent available, on the basis, his organisation then becomes intrinsically more valuable to him as the business owner.
You need, therefore, to take ego out of your hiring decisions and management approach, particularly as a small business owner.
If you’re looking to attract the highest caliber of a person into your business then you will need to adopt an approach to recruitment that aligns with this. It can be good to create recruitment videos that highlight the nature of your company, the culture, and the driving force behind your motivation to be in the business you’re in.
There’s a well known saying in marketing that facts tell and stories sell. Therefore, within your recruitment video that is essentially a ‘sales video’ for potential employees, it can be good to share your personal story – in terms of the “why” behind you do the business you do. Your personal values, and how these are embodied in the culture you’ve created.
People ultimately buy people. Most prospective employees don’t want a veneered approach that says all the right things, but comes across as shallow and hollow – they want to connect with the feeling of your company and the people running your business.
For this reason, many creative companies will have some bizarre personal facts about its team; for instance, this is Mandy, she’s our Marketing Director and she loves spinning classes and taking her labrador for a walk. This snapshot of personal insight humanises the person, and brings them to life, yet – it’s still rather black and white – whereas when you embrace the power of video, you can create a much richer experience that offers the opportunity for potential employees to connect with your workplace culture.
* This post has been written for Morning Business Chat by an outside source.
