Business Love is Looking After People, Part Two
Volume 11, Number 38
Issue 534
I see so many companies that don't care a darn about their employees. Three weeks ago, I was at the Chesterfield County, Virginia Fair and heard the Marshall Tucker Band. Between songs, the lead singer told the crowd that the reason that his band had survived thirty years was that they all cared about each other so much. He said that they embraced each other like a family and that the personal conduct of the band members mattered--really mattered. They, as a band, embraced family values and helped each other lead good lives. He said that they weren't afraid to be involved in each other's lives.
I think that involvement in the lives of employees by the top management of a company is important because of the need to lead, mentor and teach employees on their journey. To me, it's also important that I really get to know the personal goals and desires of my clients, too, because how good a CPA am I going to be if I don't want to know the words behind the numbers? In the 1980s, a brokerage company used the marketing tag-line, "when E. F. Hutton talks, people listen." I've always tried to say, when an employee or client talks, I listen, and when they don't talk about what they want, I try to get them to tell me. I can better impact goals, desires, values, dreams, needs and wants if I use sympathetic love to get close to people.
Now, after reading the paragraph above, you might think that I go to far. Life is a journey and a deep relationship doesn't happen overnight. The scenario described takes a long time to develop. I will point out, though, that I would wonder what would you be thinking if I said that I took steps to never get close to anybody, to avoid anything personal--anything non-business. To be a stonewall and "standoffish" would be the complete other end of the scale. My point is that, with love applied in a sympathetic, caring, long-term business environment, I can do my job better for employees, clients and associates.
My job, above all else, is to bring out the best in people and to help them identify and reach their goals and dreams and, at the same time, help them to realize the impact that they can have to make our world a better place. I've found that when people feel important and are treated with love and respect that they will become driven to attain their highest possible level of accomplishment (however they want to measure it) and as long as they have attained that, I have attained my own goal.
David B. Robinson, CPA
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