The Human Edge
By Jay Forte

Hidden behind the faces of our employees is the most significant asset any organization can employ - intellectual capital. This capital shows up as the personality, effort and energy of each employee and can be identified as the “human edge” – the power of the humanity of the workforce.

Employees who are encouraged to think, invent, create, contribute, feel and respond with passion activate their human advantage – their personal and professional EDGE. Employees who are not only allowed, but are encouraged, to be human in their jobs out perform, out last and out invent other employees. As you can imagine, an organization built on this type of employee consistently outperforms all others. Our humanity – is our EDGE; it builds customer relationships, invents solutions, creates new products, finds the extra effort to complete tasks and wants to make a difference. The humanity in the workplace is the source of our success. Let’s see why.

Our world continues to change. Previously in the industrial age, we made “things.” Employees followed wrote procedures for optimal machine efficiency and productivity. There wasn’t as great a demand for inventive thinking or passionate performance; show up, keep the machines going, watch for problems…clock out and start again the next day.

Then much of manufacturing moved off-shore and we evolved into a service economy where we now make “ideas;” we are a thinking economy. Each day our employees have to think through their responses to each customer; all customers are different and one size service does not create loyal customers. In today’s economy, employees interact all day with people; personal rapport and relationship building have moved to center stage. Employees must care about customers to be able to provide service worthy of customer loyalty. Employees must care about their peers as people in order to work well and effectively with them. Employees must be fully present – heart and mind, emotions and intellect – to be able to respond in the way that wins customers and drives the business.

Humanity is no longer something to shun from the workplace; it is now the critical component of an extraordinary service brand identity. Humanity is now in vogue. Humanity is now a competitive advantage. And based on this, our role as managers is to encourage, accept, inspire and develop the Human EDGE in our people.

The Human EDGE can be broken down into four power areas: emotions, thinking, inventing and the will to succeed. When in place, these four power areas create the most significant asset in the organization… human capital. Previously, fixed assets, inventory and accounts receivable were the greater organization assets. Today, it is the thinking and feeling employee. When activated, employees invent, engage, connect and build lifetime relationships. When not activated, they do as little in the workplace as possible so not as to be fired. When not activated, there is no great service for customers, no inventive solutions to problems and no expanded view of the future. In short, we fail.

Developing the four power areas requires a change in conventional or “industrial age” management thinking. Employees commit to workplaces that understand who they are, set expectations that let them work in their talent areas and own their performance. Employees commit to workplaces that provide constant feedback and performance counseling and workplaces that focus on both short and long-term development. Each of these areas tells an employee that they matter - personally and professionally. And when they feel supported, understood and valued, they “choose” to respond with full performance. Customer-focused companies are first employee-focused workplaces. And with employee-focused workplaces comes the thinking and feeling (or human side) of business.

The four power areas of the Human EDGE are:

Emotions
Employees are thinking and feeling creatures; emotions come bundled with them as they arrive in the workplace. Many conventional managers believe that emotions do not belong in the workplace; they are inappropriate or too difficult to deal with. But, remember that the best performance happens when employee are "passionate" about what they do. Employees who are encouraged to be fully human in the workplace, cheer and applaud success and are hurt and disappointed with failures. They fully participate because they are welcomed for who they and as they are. Emotions drive performance.

Key questions: Are your employees outwardly passionate about life or work? What do you do to encourage them to get excited about what they do, how they relate to customers and how they make a difference? Are emotions allowed in the workplace – and though they may need to be controlled, is it okay to be human in your organization? Is fun and great energy encouraged at work?

Thinking
Thinking…it seems that so few people do it at work any more. This is paradoxical since we are in a thinking economy. A service economy is a thinking economy; each time a customer comes in or calls (the service event) the employee must be fully engaged and thinking to know how to provide the right response for the customer, and then to change for the next customer. Organizations that do not encourage independent thinking, pass up on one of the greatest aspects of the Human EDGE.The more employees are allowed to think in the workplace, the more vested they become in their personal performance and in the results of the organization.

Key questions: Do you require your employees to think their way through their day…even if some of their thinking leads to errors or failures? Do you applaud their ability to invent their own responses and use what they know about the organization to think through powerful responses? Do you create a workforce that encourages each other to think and to share what they know? Do you create a learning organization where education, dialog, reading and learning is part of the culture and an expectation of each employee? Do you hold employees accountable for the success or failure of their thinking and their responses?

Inventing
Inventing is one of the most powerful attributes of the Human EDGE. Though most of us were better at inventing and creating as kids, we still have the ability. Statistics show that 90% of 5 year olds, 70% of 9 year olds and 5% of 13 year olds (and older) are creative. We had it but then lost it. Corralled into school, we all followed the same rules, wrote the same way and did the same activities; this chased much of our creative spirit from us. Our role as managers must make it easy for employees to reconnect to their ability to invent, create and propose new ideas to advance service levels, product quality and overall performance. As author Seth Godin says, "the bland and boring spot has been taken;" that means that our success is in the creative and innovative. Our employees want to invent big things…they want to reconnect to their creativity to stand out and get noticed. It is up to us to encourage and activate this power into the workplace.

Key questions: Do you practice being creative with your employees? Do you allow/require your employees to constantly provide suggestions for improvement, no matter how unconventional or bizarre? Do you make work fun and engaging to get employees inventing and creating? Do you support cross training and job sharing to expose all employees to new ideas and new perspectives? Do you regularly move employees out of their comfort zones to encourage constant thinking and inventing?

The will to succeed
The will to succeed is the final section of the Human EDGE; it drives employees to higher performance. All employees – all people – want to feel successful. The more successful an employee feels, the more the employee continues to perform. The best way for an employee to feel successful is when he knows what is expected of him and what adds value to the organization. Then, he must be given the tools and opportunity to achieve them. Organizations help employees succeed by creating performance expectations; performance expectations identify what success looks like then allows the employee to have a voice in the process to achieve them. This moves the ability to be successful into the hands of the employee.

Key questions: Do you create specific performance expectations or goals for each employee? Do they have a voice in creating these expectations or goals? How do you celebrate when significant goals or performance expectations are achieved? Do all of your employees focus on owning their success?

The Human EDGE is the key to extraordinary performance and a competitive service advantage. The four power areas of emotions, thinking, creating and the will to succeed look to define the power of the Human EDGE. The more these four are developed in the workplace, the more connected, engaged, and more “human” your employee become. Great performance happens when the “whole” employee – thoughts and emotions, mind and heart – is present in his work; this is your most significant millennial asset and the source of your greatest competitive advantage.

Copyright © 2008 Humanetrics, LLC. All rights reserved.