Treat People As Humans Not Function

Everyone in your company is a human. The culture of the organization determines how they are treated. In many organizations, people are treated as their functions not as humans. There is no way they can unleash their human potential when they are not treated as humans.

Humans are emotional beings and how they feel is very important. How you treat people will very much determine what they bring to the table. If you treat them as functions, they will perform their task but will not bring their human elements to work.

People will always rise to your expectations of them. You can’t treat them better than how you see them. If you see them as functions, you will expect them to perform their task. You won’t expect them to be emotional. You just want them to deliver the goods. You want them to follow the method you have outlined and have been using.

However, as humans they may break from tradition and follow a new path, which they believe will produce greater results. The workplace should not be like what George Orwell portrayed in his book, Animal Farm I paraphrase: that all humans are equal but some humans are more equal than others.

In most organizations, the higher up the corporate ladder you climb the more human you are seen to be. Everyone at the bottom of the ladder is less human than those at the top of the ladder. However, a humanistic culture bridge that gap. Everyone is seen and treated as humans no matter their role in the organization.

When you treat them as function, they bring their skills and experience.

When you treat them as humans, they unleash their potential.

There is a limit to what their skills and experience can do, but there is no limit on what their potential can make happen. Human ingenuity is unlimited.

You will need to motivate them to perform as function. Whenever companies talk about motivating their people, it’s the outcome of seeing them as function not human.

However, you will need to inspire them to unleash their potential. Once they are inspired, they won’t need motivation. They become self-motivated.

Every human is a member of a family. They are someone’s spouse, child, parent, and sibling. When they close from work, they go home to people. They have people who expect much from them. Truly Human Culture takes that into consideration and ensures that people are sent home happy, safe, and better to their family.

The family’s gift to the company is refreshed humans, while the company’s gift to the family is a safe, happy, and fulfilled family member. When you see them as humans, you will treat them well and understand that you have a responsibility to their families to keep them safe and happy at work.

The challenge of not treating people as humans is that you don’t care about the impact the company is having on their private lives. People spend the bigger part of their active lives at work. How they are treated impacts how they live outside of work. If they feel good at work, they will go home and spread that goodness.

People mirror how they feel treated. If they are treated with kindness, they will spread kindness. If they are treated with respect, they will respect others. If you don’t trust them, chances are they won’t trust you or act in a trustworthy way. The way they are treated determines to a great extent how they treat others.

How To Treat Humans

Human potential is very delicate. You have to cultivate it. Human ingenuity is very sensitive. You have to make people feel good about themselves. When the condition is human, people will act human. Humans are kind, good, caring, patient, productive, innovative, and creative.

To get the best from your humans, you should treat them as though they matter because they do matter.

1. Care For Them: Humans want to be cared for. They want to feel they are valuable and important. When you care for the people working in your company, you trigger the human in them. That way you unleash the power of caring throughout your organization.

2. Respected Them: Humans want to be respected. When you listen to them and they feel heard, they feel they matter. That makes them feel respected. They open up to be influenced when they feel respected.

3. Honored Their Dignity: Humans want to feel worthy and important. They want to be esteemed, celebrated, and recognized. It makes them happy. They will fall in love with a company where their dignity is honored and not violated. They get treated as people who are valuable.

4. Appreciated Them For the Good They Do: Humans want to be appreciated for the good they do. They want to be caught doing good and told what a great job they are doing. When people are appreciated, they appreciate value. You will have more of the behavior that you continually appreciated.

5. Placed In Role that Aligns With their Passion: Humans want a role that aligns with their passion, not their competence. When their job aligns with their passion, work becomes a joy and not drudgery. They don’t burn out but rather keep passionately burning. They are constantly in a state of flow that results in creativity and innovation.

How are you treating the humans in your company? Truly Human Culture is one culture that sees and treats people as human in the workplace. It creates an environment where people’s humanity is cultivated. They get sent back home as better humans to spread love, goodness, and kindness at home. You can join us to co-create the Truly Human Culture Playbook.