05 Nov 2009, Posted by Josh Allan Dykstra in Leadership, Legacy, No Comments. Tagged leading, organizations, philosophy, talent

People: Your LEAST Important Asset

Once upon a time, in the thick of the American industrial revolution, a highly respected and influential leader is said to have exclaimed:

“Why is it that I always get the whole person when what I really want is a pair of hands?”

That leader was Henry Ford, the Titan of Automobiles and bringer of the assembly line.

Whether Ford actually said this or not isn’t really the point. The sad reality is that the sentiment behind this statement — that people are as interchangeable and replaceable as machine parts, only worth their hands — has been passed down through the generations. Today we find this mentality is a tragic unifying component in the fingerprints of almost every organization.

Through my consulting and business experiences, I hear another expression a lot, either spoken or printed on websites or walls: “People are our most important asset.” I have a simple question about this…

Why, then, do we treat them like our least important asset?

NOTE: I find some of the information in this video questionable (In 2020, 75% of people will want to sit alone and use email for all their communication? Seriously?) and the music ridiculously distracting. But I was jolted by the info starting around 1:53.

//