3 Essential Truths of Business Distilled from 60+ Years of Experience
My grandpa ran his own business until he was 86 years old and my parents have been running their own since I was a teenager.
At 26 years old I’m currently helping manage and lead Experience Design at R/GA, one of the top digital agencies in the world, as part of their team embedded at Google in Mountain View, CA.
There are a few general rules of business that I’ve learned from my family’s successes, as well as my experience in the business world thus far, that I will always adhere to in any of my future business endeavors, regardless of the size of the company.
1. Keep Your Employees Happy
One of the biggest things my family has done in running their businesses is making sure their employees are happy. Obviously there are limits to this but as long as your employees are productive and helping the business reach its goals, what’s the harm in letting them live their lives instead of being chained to a set number of hours that society tells us is required for us to get our job done?
Your employees are people too. They have sons and daughters, husbands and wives, parents, and all sorts of other commitments that they need to take care of. And most of life’s commitments require us to be available from 9am–5pm when everyone is working. So what’s wrong with letting them go to the doctor when they’re not feeling well, work from home to take care of their sick child or pet, or take the afternoon to get their car repaired as long as they’re getting their work done?
Not only will they be happier because they don’t have an extra stressor in their life, they’ll also be more productive because they can focus. And more than likely they’ll also appreciate you being flexible, which will come back to you through increased commitment to your company and greater productivity at work.
Treat your employees well and they’ll do the same to you.
2. Retain Your Employees
Let’s not lie to ourselves here. Hiring is one of the most difficult things to do in business. You have to make a decision about long-term fit with a limited amount of interaction. And there are a lot of bad apples out there.
But you can’t just treat your employees like gears in a machine. Eventually that will come back to bite you like we saw with Yelp not too long ago. Take a second to think about the effect firing someone and hiring someone new has on your business:
-There’s the psychological thrash amongst your employees/team chemistry due to the fear of getting fired as well, or sadness about the loss of a teammate they may have cared about.
-Along with that there’s usually some kind of fight put up from the person you fired because he or she has a life to take care of and is now unemployed.
-On top of managing this psychological thrash you have to remain calm, put out ads to find new talent in various media channels, reach out to people you might know, and/or hire a recruiter to help you on your search. Probably all three. All of which costs you time and money.
-Once you start getting applications and candidates in the door you have to spend time doing background/reference checks, you have to manage applications and appointments, you have to get these people interacting with your team when individuals have free time. All of which, again, costs you time and money.
-Then let’s not forget about onboarding. The time in your employee’s career where you’re paying them to set up and get assimilated to the team. If they get 2 hours of actual work done in a day you’d be ecstatic. Yes, it’s something that you have to do, but if you’re understand business at all you’d realize onboarding costs both time and money through opportunity cost.
-And to top it all off you’ll probably discover even more thrash within your organization as the new person is finding his or her groove and the team adapts to the new hire’s work style.
Retaining talent saves you time and money in the long run because you spend less of both assets hunting for quality talent, messing with your team’s chemistry and workflow by bringing new people in and out, and more time working together to build the vision you’ve all gathered around. We, as owners and managers, need to realize the importance of relational equity.
Obviously I understand that not every hire is perfect and there are times when you’re just going to have to fire someone. When that time comes don’t just look for the person that is a perfect fit for your job description. Look for the person that fits your culture best, has a positive attitude about learning, and has enough talent to succeed. Hiring someone that fits the description well, has a positive outlook and is willing to learn is often much better for your business, long term, than someone that simply fits an arbitrary description you’ve made up.
Not only will this person make the rest of your employees happy because they will be able to work better as a team, this person will also be much more likely to earn their keep by filling whatever role is needed. And in the long term that mindset will be easier to manage, which will lead to you keeping that person around longer.
It might be easy to replace talent, but it’s not easy to replace humans and relationships.
3. Don’t Forget Your Roots
The one thing my family has never been afraid to do is get their hands dirty. Unless you knew them personally or you asked to speak to a manager, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between my family and their employees.
My mom and dad might not be the technical people they have on their mechanical staff but they’d do whatever their mechanics needed to help them do their job right. My grandpa might have been 86 and unable to do the physical work he used to do when he was younger but you bet your ass even at 86 he was the first one out there when equipment got delivered at 6am, before his store was even open.
You’d never hear anyone in my family say “That’s not my job” because at one point it was their job, they know how much effort everything takes, and they’re not too proud to do whatever is needed to help their team succeed.
It’s easy to get big and forget what got you there in the first place, but it’s important that you don’t.
There are no KPIs for Intangibles
Of all the things I’ve learned throughout my experience with business, these are three essential truths I will take with me everywhere I go. There are no KPIs for psychological well being, team chemistry, and grit but these are three the greatest companies in the world prioritize. Together, these three truths will synergistically improve your business beyond analytics.
Take your company from good to great by implementing these truths into your business model today. And when you do, let me know what happens!
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I am currently an Experience Designer for R/GA at Google in San Francisco, CA and a guest blogger for InVision.
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