Why do I prefer people more than profit

Each business decision reflects a value system, even if it is not named straight. When sales decreases, do you reduce your sales team or make your sales team make cow meat when you have confirmed that your sales strategy still works? This choice shows where you have kept your weight, that is, what prefers you when you limit the resources, but the company still has the capacity to pay the panel.

For me, the answer is to invest in the right people. However, some organizations ever choose to make a call on which point of view is pushing their decision -making.

Instead of making a strategic choice, these companies work with unknown assumptions. This leaves their leaders in an uncertainty. When a crisis is hit, some choose security while others choose development, which causes confusion and conflict. This is a value killer.

These are the people who produce value, however you explain it – whether it be a profit, tax, standards or culture – and the leader’s job is to clarify the need to harmonize their role with organizational goals. So here is how to bring these values ​​to the surface so that a place for principle decisions can be created, even when the right path is not easy or perfect.

Related: Why profit on people is to fail

The value of unknown preferences

Decision -making can be a good gauge about how well an organization is setting its priorities. The larger the company, the price of the people is drawn in different directions. Mackini It is learned that less than half of the 1,200 global business leaders conducted their decisions in a timely manner, and many of their decision -making processes were ineffective.

The decision does not hurt the stroke companies because they lack data such as sales, profits and head count, but because they have not named their values ​​within the company as part of their culture nor have their value. When priorities are not clear, people decide each other’s actions through their value lenses. Then when the other party is doing differently, they are disappointed.

There are exceptions. When survival is at stake due to bankruptcy or market accidents, the decision -making scope is inevitable. However, in most misery, I have to keep the whole team aligning what we should do. Only then I prefer people over short -term profit concerns, not because I neglect the financial results, but because the empowered people develop a sustainable business over time.

When values ​​collide

The tension between people and profits is not ideological – this is a living reality on a daily basis. Corporate culture is primarily an attached value system that needs to be called, so everyone follows it to maximize the effectiveness.

We need to look at the value system, not as a barrier, but as a guidance powers. When they feel suffering from trade, they help to reveal the most important things. Think about the clashes of values ​​that may be facing companies of different sizes.

• Speed ​​vs. standard: Do you send a fast or product perfect ship before you go to the market?

• Innovation vs. Performance: Discover new markets or improve existing operations?

• Customer satisfaction vs. Margen: Absorb the costs to increase reputation or save current quarter profits?

• Centrality vs. autonomy: Head office control or local decision -making?

This kind of stress is encountered, my purpose is not to impose my values, but I am not sure avoiding conversation serves someone. Instead of choosing between competitive values, the goal is to agree on how we balance them or in what case we prefer more than one another. Forget neutrality. Priority and balance of values ​​is not a 50-50 suggestion. Instead, we have to bow down to the conflict to create an explanation first.

Related: Keeping your values ​​correct is a necessary decision -making metric

To bring values ​​to the surface

The best approach to getting everyone on the same page is practical, though probably never hurt. If I am in the administrative team and there is a difference of opinion between reduction or investment in more and more people, let the level of the argument come to the level so that everyone can discuss it from their point of view.

Cost does not necessarily make people anti. And investing in people is certainly not anti -profit for a long time. But it can feel the wrong way when decisions are not based on the combined value framework.

Safety vs. speed crisis In the Open, the Open showed how the wrong values ​​could be eliminated if the leaders were divided. The board worked with the original unprecedented mission of the open, which gave the safety first position, while CEO Sam Altman appreciated the pace in the market. When in 2023 Altman was briefly fired, Then chaos – Employees’ rebellion and investor panic – put the organization at risk.

The resolution came only when Openi created a frame that caused them to keep both safety and innovation together. Values, such as Openi’s time -time crisis, need to be clearly nominated. If there is a dispute over assumed values, it is an opportunity to build your structure that keeps them in balance.

Related: How to put people before profit has given my company’s long -term success

Values ​​as navigation tools

The lesson from the Open was that every growing organization faced moments when values ​​collided. Particularly in mission -powered companies, scaling brings tensions between staying up and pursuing market opportunities. Instead of avoiding this stress, it is important to cope with it.

It is not about choosing parties in a moral superiority or a philosophical debate. Organizations that develop are the ones who clarify their priorities and when they balance them, they are tired. Apparent For a conflict. The first thing to keep people is to keep people first: to make your team clear that they need to navigate the complex choice and create a long -lasting price together.