Create thriving culture by focusing on people

Built to Serve
How to Drive the Bottom Line with People-First Practices
By Dan J. Sanders, 268 pp.
McGraw-Hill 2008

Because today's prevailing global business culture is broken, a radical transformation is needed that will reshape our understanding of the true purpose of work. It begins, says Dan Sanders, chief executive of United Supermarkets, with accepting the idea that "organizations that make people and service the cornerstones of their corporate identity enjoy sustainability."

According to Sanders, though power and money appear to be the ultimate rewards, that notion is misguided and myopic. When businesses come to be dominated by numbers, they forget their real purpose and focus more on populating spreadsheets than on enriching lives. Focusing on meaningless numbers at the expense of meaningful relationships is the reason for the staggering number of organizations that fail within 10 years of their initial opening.

Those who subscribe exclusively to the belief that everything has to have an immediate return on investment will never fully comprehend "higher math," which is about paying attention to people and the so-called soft matters with the same fervor with which one pays attention to profits.

People-centered organizations speak the language of potential - not so much as potential relates to a sales number, but as it relates to the workforce itself. Without an emotional investment in team members, there will be an emotional void in the effort to sustain customers. And, for brands to generate an emotional connection with customers requires engaged, enthusiastic team members.

Research reveals that world-class, people-centered organizations understand that the creation of a service-oriented environment is not necessarily delivered by a perceptive business initiative, but by an ongoing commitment to humane values. These cannot be quantified on a financial report, for they reside in an organization's employees and customers.

In short, organizations are increasingly becoming culture driven. And, when they do so, people at the top no longer assume responsibility for establishing the vision, communicating the values and, then, continuously communicating, selling, and "incentivising" around that vision and set of values.

Different people serve different needs in different ways because of their unique talents, ultimately forming a culture of complementary teams. The role and importance of every person is respected and, consequently the organization flattens. Leadership becomes more a choice than a position of formal authority.

"Built to Serve" is firmly grounded in, and founded on, this paradigm, and yet it is no mere theoretical treatise, but rather United Supermarkets' model. In an industry where size is a popular strategy, United Supermarkets -a company not widely known - manages not just to survive, but to thrive because of its culture-driven, people-centered approach to business.

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