People Are Every Business’s Greatest Asset

The gap between good companies and great companies is small, but it’s not easy to close, and good companies too rarely do what it takes to get there.

They fail to close the gap because they fail to take advantage of their greatest asset: people. They fail to allow great people to excel, and they fail to find more great people.

I can not think of a single business that has found success without finding and supporting great people. Can you?

At some point over the course of any business’s lifespan, it’s going to hit a wall. Typically when that happens, executives gather in a room and attempt to address the issue. Should we spend more on marketing? Do we have an operational gap? Do we need to explore an acquisition?

Any of those things could be right. In some cases, all of them are. But more often than not, it’s something much more simple. It’s a people gap. It’s a difference between the great people and the good (or less than good) people, and that discrepancy is dragging the entire team down.

To solve this, there are two routes:

1. Take your role players and figure out a way to motivate them to be all-stars.

2. Go out and find more all-stars.

When you do build a killer team, you’ll quickly find two results:

1. More talent joins.

2. Your business grows.

Well, in a good economy, it can be tough to find that great talent in the first place. But once you do find great talent, it is imperative that you do what it takes to keep them around. Understand their value. Open doors for them. And of course, hold them accountable, but lead them to want to be held accountable. Then use their talent to discover more talent. Find the one degree of separation, incentivize recruitment, and show the world why great talent wants to be on your team.

Inevitably, the economy will become more favorable to employees. When that happens, businesses that do not prioritize their people are going to find themselves struggling to compete, and the employers that invest in and nurture awesome people will win.