The Heart of Business: how putting people first can transform an organization

“Always start with people; always end with people, and generate human energy”.

In “The Heart of Business,” Hubert Joly, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Best Buy, shares lessons from his successful experience in turning around Best Buy by putting people first instead of going into destructive cost-cutting.

Advocating for purposeful leadership, creating a sense of urgency with optimism, and transforming what seemed like a dead organization back in 2012, which was predicted to go out of business, into a purpose-driven company. A place its employees loved, its customers adored, its products were sustainable and ultimately share price went from $11 to $90.

In his book, Hubert talks about the importance of leading by putting human relationships at the core of business operations.

On his first day as CEO of BestBuy, starting with people ?? instead of meeting with fellow executives ??, he went to the nearest BestBuy store to learn from the liners. He began to walk around, get to know the team, ask as many questions as he could, and observe sales associates as they were handling potential clients. People working closely with the customers would know for sure what’s going on. By spending a considerable time doing this, he was able to put together a nice list of both employee and customer frustrations. Growth opportunities, if I may say.

“Renew Blue” turning around BestBuy.

Instead of following the “conventional corporate turnaround playbook “of closing stores or turning away employees, he did the following:

1. Grow the top line: these are the low-hanging fruits. For example, revamping their online shopping experience, allowing direct shipping from their local stores, and inventing the store within a store concept to boost revenues. He highlights that money is an outcome of making a business work; you need it to sustain the organization. It’s not, however, the purpose behind why we do business. Every business must have a bigger purpose.
2. Decreasing non-salary costs: looking deep into what was causing them to lose even more money. One of the interesting findings was the costly broken TV screens. They looked for different approaches to designing more damage-proof TVs with more substantial packaging, providing tutorials on how to store them, ultimately leading them to save millions.
3. Ending with people: Improving employee benefits and creating wellness programs. When people feel happy and satisfied, they will bring their best selves to work, reflecting on business objectives.

Unleashing human magic

Each and every one of us has a purpose, the ultimate driver, the reason behind why we do what we do. Whether it’s putting a smile on someone’s face every day, making the world a little kinder than we found it, advocating for women’s rights, or transforming healthcare altogether.

The companies we admire don’t just sell unique products or services. Instead, they stand for BIG dreams and have compelling missions of impacting lives and reshaping our world.

For a group of people to work well together and to unleash the human magic within them ??, from Hubert’s perspective and my very own humble experience ?? they need to have an aligned purpose that also aligns with the whole purpose behind the existence of an organization.

Getting everyone aligned on the same purpose, focusing on people, business, and finally finances (in this particular order), they would start monthly business reviews by first discussing employees, then customers, and finally financials. There was also a dramatic change in assessing performance. They changed key performance indicators from mainly focusing on finances and rankings into becoming obsessed with employee net promoter scores, satisfaction surveys, environmental impact, and diversity achievements which would lead to the ultimate return on investment later on.

“The future is created by the optimists.”

Hubert highlights how during the turnaround, they celebrated every win at any chance they got, no matter how small it was. In townhalls and with investors, they were actively searching for good news to share and turn into announcements. Without sugarcoating challenges, they made sure they highlighted what was going well.

Life is crazy, and we never really know. We don’t choose our circumstances and sometimes the next challenge is waiting for us just around the corner, as we’re still trying to catch our breath. However, we have control over how we feel and react to those challenges.

As a leader, choosing how you show up each day is essential. It takes a great deal of courage to look beyond the challenges. To look for opportunities, to inspire, radiate hope, trust others, and always have confidence in a better future.