Who > How: The most important business decision you'll ever make.

Who > How ~ The most important business decision you will ever make.?

When you set out to start a business, grow a team, launch a product, pursue a new market-- before you do anything else, you need a plan. A good one. A tight one. One that can spin out contingencies on the fly and adapt and change to a world in which the default setting is 'uncertainty ahead'.

We know the elements of a good plan: an ultimate goal, a clearly defined path, the required resources, exciting possibilities, inspiring vision. We also know that building a strategic plan that succeeds on each one of these levels is a massive undertaking of deep research, creativity, problem solving, failure and then coming back tomorrow to do it all again.

It feels right that we treat it like it’s the biggest business decision we’ll ever make.

Only it’s not.

Because for that plan to work, you need committed people to nurture and drive it. All the whiteboard sessions and stakeholder meetings, the countless hours of projection metrics and forecast iterations, none of it will matter if your people, your teams, aren’t working together.

The future of your business plan is entirely dependent on the heartbeat of your people (and culture).

In other words, your People, not your Plan, are the most important business decision you’ll ever make.

Why your people are your best plan

We’re deep into the 'cultural cauldron' of a global pandemic. We’ve seen some companies flourish while others were brought to their knees, we’ve seen some countries rise and others stumble, and we’ve seen both bewildering leadership decisions and some absolutely breathtaking ingenuity.

When the crisis hit, did your company pivot or panic? Did your people have the courage to bring forward new ideas or did they simply 'nod and plod', or worse, jump ship? Were there teams that thrived while others floundered?

All at once, every single organization, industry, and small business on this planet slammed into the same hulking obstacle. Sure, it looked different depending on the geography, available reserves, and the specific business sector. But in a broad sense, we were all forced, ready or not, to take the same test.

The groups of people who were the first to reinvent where required and set to meeting this new reality on its own terms were the teams that thrived. They built new strategies and trusted one another enough to get solution-focused.

Strategic plans weren't your saving grace. The health of your culture was. As Simon Sinek says, “It’s the quality of the relationships that we maintain, professionally and personally, that give us the courage to face difficult things.”

How you build your teams, who you draw in, and the values around which those teams organize are where your attentions need to be.

We need to embrace the role that people play in making a business successful.

Getting people right

If we’ve learned anything over these past 23 months, it’s that when crisis hits, strong teams and a thriving culture will be the key determinant in long-term viability.?

Make no mistake, business strategy is important. And, it’s not that people strategy BEATS business strategy.

It’s that people strategy IS business strategy.

About Leaderboard Exchange

We are a leadership and executive search firm. At Leaderboard, we know that Who > How. Your people are your greatest strength, and our expertise is understanding, defining and finding exactly who you need to complement and enhance the collective strength of your team. We find leaders who build hardy teams and hearty cultures. We can help you build yours.