The Human Element

One of my smallest clients recently began having me facilitate brainstorming, goal setting, planning and workflow improvement sessions. This is intentionally non-technical. We use lots of big paper, colored markers, sticky notes, masking tape, and of course an ample supply of tea.

I’ve been doing this for more years than I’d like to say. It’s energizing, fun, and effective.

The methods I use are simple for clients to learn, so they can do this on their own after the first time around—but it works best with an outside facilitator so everyone in the team can participate equally.

Between sessions, one day the owner called. He was having a bit of an emergency in the business and wondered if I’d be willing to meet with him outside the office to talk it through.

We met and talked. I’m pleased to say that conversation helped him organize his thoughts, and he has been able to bring the emergency to as positive a conclusion as anyone could hope for.

But what stuck with me about that afternoon was a short snippet at the end. He thanked me for taking time out for our chat. Spontaneously, I responded not only with the usual “no problem” type of comment, but with a little more. “In business you need customers, and you need suppliers… but sometimes you just need a friend.”

It simply popped out, and it’s true.

I have seen too many businesses ruin themselves by letting numbers or technology drive everything. When I think about businesses that stand out as truly exceptional, what distinguishes them is the human factor. They don’t treat me or anyone else like a cell in a spreadsheet. They smile. They listen. When there’s a problem, they focus on solving it instead of reciting a canned message. If their product or service lets me down, first they apologize and then they try to make it right. I can think of businesses I’ve stayed with for many years even if cheaper alternatives are available because they behave that way, and other businesses that I turned away from as soon as I could because they treated me like a number.

The business owner looked a little surprised when I said that. But he also looked like it felt right, and I believe it is.