Issue #77

If You Want Your People To Make The Difference - Be Different

I love this quote from Peter Drucker, who was a famous business thinker and didn't have a cake shop in Birmingham, as I once thought. The two Drucker families are not even related apparently...

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

In these times of unbelievable change due to AI and all the new apps it is coining, you may wonder how you do that.

You have to focus on what makes you unique.

AI can't reproduce what you are, even if it can have a (currently) half-arsed attempt at copying what you do.

I was talking to a very successful entrepreneur, a while ago.

We were talking about how you really double down on differentiation in the marketplace.

I asked him the inevitable question about why he thought his company was so successful.

And he hit me with the ultimate cliché:

“What makes our company different is our people.”

I practically gagged.

Sure, the sky is blue, grass is green...and?

I pushed him on it, “How come your people are so special? Were they sent down from heaven just to sell medical devices?”

Rude? A little, but no one has time for "bland" these days, that is what Chat GPT is for.

Let’s be honest, most companies say this because they’ve hired smart, hardworking people and they underpay them with vague promises of career growth they can’t guarantee.

But his answer was different.

Why His People Really Make the Difference

“At first, the people who joined were risk-takers, excited by startup life,” he told me. “But as we grew, we needed specialists. People who weren’t here for the adventure, but for other reasons.”

So, the first thing he does with every new hire?

He explains exactly how their role makes money for the company.

Not how it helps customers.

Not how it supports the mission.

How it impacts the bottom line, in dollars and cents. No fluff. No guilt.

Just the reality - This is a business, we must make money to survive. You play a real part in that.

But then, he does something I have never come across before - he finds out what motivates them.

I expected some high-brow psychological model.

Instead, he laughed, “I ask them. And I don’t stop until they give me an honest answer.”

It turns out, some people care about working in the healthcare sector. Others love the startup culture. Some just want a short commute, good team vibes, or the right work-life balance.

And then, and this is the part where I realised he is a bit of a genius, he makes a deal with them:

“I’ll keep your reason for being here in mind, if you keep the company’s reason for existing in yours.”

This is what he tells them, and he is very persuasive even as he tells me.

(If you want to know how to tell great stories click here.)

"We shake on it. If either of us can’t keep up our side of the deal, we'll need to talk about options, including parting ways."

This Is What Most Companies Get Wrong

You can’t just give everyone shares and expect them to work like the founder.

You can’t just pay top dollar and expect them to care like the leadership team.

You can’t just throw in a pool table and an Espresso machine and expect them to act like a fresh grad, hungry to climb the ladder.

His people make the difference because he respects their motivations.

He doesn’t expect them to be wired like him. Because he sees them, they see his (their) company.

And that means they see the customers, the suppliers, the other teams. They are not made to fit in, they are invited to fit themselves in.

Yes, even the IT people, which, let’s face it, is a miracle.

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