What to Prioritize in 2024 (Hint: It’s People)

Hi friends. It’s Sarah and Teresa again. Woo-hoo. Possibly wearing the same sweater. And you’ll

Never know

From the last time we met, we wanted to come on and explore rules and or excuses that we make for ourselves in organizations that really get in our way of, or maybe are a little dishonest as we talked about this. So here are things that we often and commonly hear from certain organizations. I bet once a week we hear we just, we’re moving so fast. We are so busy, we’re growing so much, which I know isn’t always true. Some organizations are sustaining, some are decreasing. But this idea of because we’re moving so fast we can’t possibly prioritize thinking about things like developing people, building better relationships, creating an inclusive culture, creating greater levels of psychological safety because we’re just moving too fast. And it’s interesting because every organization is busy and not every organization is not prioritizing their people. So that’s been an interesting one to see of. Yeah, that’s true. And what do you actually value?

I’m laughing because hearing you say it, a couple things came up. I can’t imagine a call with a group that’s like, we’re not actually that busy. So I just had a good laugh about that. Something about just, this is why I love this time in these moments with you so much, Sarah, because as you were talking about moving so fast, I couldn’t help but think of a car trip times. You’re on the interstate and we’re moving very fast. And I was thinking, you don’t say we’re moving very fast. We didn’t buckle up, we didn’t pack snacks. I dunno. We don’t know where we’re going. Just ride in the back of the pickup for the next 17 hours because we know we’re going somewhere long and we will be going fast. We most of us, and if you just hop in the car and drive, I’m not judging you at all, just go with it for a minute. But we take steps when we’re going to go fast to ensure that the humans don’t get hurt on the journey. I’ve never thought of it like that way. No, it’s brilliant. It’s brilliant. But there’s something there, right? Because well, and let’s also just name this. Yes, you’re moving fast and I’ll give it to folks. It’s hard to do a lot of things well when you’re moving fast. So you have to be real intentional. But so much of the time, and this is me, I don’t know that they would be doing it any better if they weren’t moving so fast. I don’t know that it’s important to them to do well. And I say that kind of with love and kind of with a pokey stick. You have to really think about, is this even important? Because something, this is a little bit different direction than we started, but if we pretend it matters and then we act like it doesn’t matter, that’s so much more harmful than saying, Hey, this company is X. We move really fast. We don’t put a lot of time and development into humans. Do you want to come along with us? I mean, just be upfront. I knew someone and their daughter worked for a company that was kind of like that, that was like, we know it’s, there’s not a lot of support and we chew people up and spit them out. And if you could hang in, you got a huge benefit at the end of two years. And that was the agreement. It was like that was it. That wasn’t for everyone. That wouldn’t be for the long term. I’m not even advocating for it. I’m just saying they were very open and that’s what the arrangement was. But I think what’s so harmful is when we see, “this really matters and our people really matter, and we don’t do seat belts, we don’t have airbags, we don’t have snacks.”

You don’t stop her potty breaks.

We don’t, oh, thank goodness. You mentioned a potty

Breaks. Somebody gets nauseous. Just choke it down.

Yeah. Well, what’s wrong with you? Just we’re not stopping this car. So something in there was just rolling around for me. I

Love that. I think that’s such an apt metaphor and as an organization really reflect on, if this really matters, then we give it time. Now again, we know what it’s like. We have seasons when we’re moving really fast. And to your point, we might not be doing things well, but what are the things we can be prepared for? What are structures we can put in place? Where are we willing to tolerate? What are the non-negotiables and where is the areas where kind of don’t want to swing too far this way?

Yes.

I was in a training years and years and years ago, and it was a real provocative push of basically like, well, this is how I would frame it: “Other companies are moving as fast or possibly faster, are experiencing as much growth or maybe more are working in as challenging industries or more challenging, and they are able to prioritize the people. What do you think they’re doing differently?” And I love that kind of provocative question of, well, this person is, and I can see how that could unintentionally be weaponized. So I was like, there’s no one size right approach to anything. But there is just that deeper reflection. And something that I’ll share with the group or people who are listening is when Teresa and I are on calls with clients who talk about wanting to move towards some kind of aspirational vision, we always ask them, who’s driving this? Who is driving this? Because if it is not your senior leadership team committed actively driving, it’s not that you can’t make movement, it’s just going to be a slog. I feel like every organization we’ve worked with where you had these really passionate HR folks, you have these really passionate managers or passionate individuals who are wanting to make a difference and they’re just, the boulder is getting pushed up a real steep hill.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know we’ve partnered with some folks in that situation, and you can still make progress, but it’s going to be micro, it’s going to be smaller pockets of change. And I don’t think that’s wrong. It’s still positively benefiting people. And the other thing that came up for me when you were talking is, and it would be okay as organizations to say, we don’t want to move so fast that we can’t protect the people. That would be a guiding question. This is from the work of Todd Whitaker, but you make your decisions on what your best people will think. And if your best people will be run over by the profit train as you grow so fast, then you would temper that. You would be mindful of that. Or even if, and I get it, sometimes you’re on a hot trajectory and you want to keep it going, but what do the humans need to keep it going? And I think there’s been, this is me being feisty, but I see way too much just, “humans shoehorn yourselves into what the machine wants instead of humans. What do you need so that you can keep doing well n this machine, in this context?”

Yeah, I think that’s a really interesting question. And then I think the watch out is to make sure how you define the best people, because the best people necessarily our default would be familiarity bias, who’s like me, who values what I value, and just to push against that love. Just, well, I feel like just coming back to that ending on that question of if you had the time, would your organization still be doing this, would they? And if not, then there does have to be some real honest interrogation of why are we saying this is important to us when we aren’t giving it any time or resources or capacity and answer that honestly. So with that, my friends, our friends, that wraps the second episode of us just coming in and checking second episode today that we’re recording. But we love hearing from you. We love hearing your thoughts. We love hearing what resonated. We do. We read it, we get curious about it. We get pushed by it. So how has this been true in your organization? Or even better, what stories do you have of success of a company that was growing and was still keeping their eye on taking care of the people that we’re still trying to figure out how do we do this better? We would love to hear those success stories. You can send those at hello@seralwilson.com or send us a message on the website. Thanks, Teresa. Thank you.