Just As With Business, Civil Service Is About Serving People
How many times have you heard “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business!” I find this statement personally offensive. It contradicts everything I believe about how good businesses are built and prosper. As a Civil Servant working for the Federal Government, I believe successful businesses have one common element contributing to their success, the ability to form lasting personal relationships”
Personally, I often frequently find dealing with people can exhausting and need time alone to recharge. I’ve read Dale Carnegie and related materials to improve my social skills, however, it didn’t make the act itself any more enjoyable.
How much emphasis do you put on relationships with your customers or clients, if you prefer? Do you attribute your success to your ability to create lasting personal bonds?
Customers are people. So are employees. When you treat them as if you cared what happens to them, they respond favorably.
A similar point is found in one of the great management books of all time, is Stronger Than Steel (1980), by R. C. Sproul. It’s a book on one of the most remarkable corporate turnarounds in American history.
The company was about to go into bankruptcy. It had run out of capital. It could not get loans. The union, which had no use for management, would not give an inch. As a desperation measure, the managers called in a Wayne Alderson, a middle manager. Wayne talked straight with the union’s reps. He laid out the books: it was the end of the rope.
Wayne said that he would implement a new program. Managers would start treating workers as people. So would foreman. He loosened up he tight rules on time off. Management and labor stopped battling each other. In a year, the company was profitable. There had been no infusion of monetary capital. There had been a huge infusion of human capital.
The middle manager, Wayne Alderson, went on to found his own company, Value of the Person. http://www.valueoftheperson.com/waynealderson.html.
Business is personal. To separate business from things personal is to undermine a principle of success in business.