This month I read The Heart of Business by Hubert Joly. While he has been in the business world for his whole career, he decided to write this book after he completed his time as CEO of Best Buy. His journey and involvement with many businesses around the world and with many business leaders taught him a great deal about leadership and caused him to evaluate what it really means to be a leader and what type of leader he wanted to be. Let's take a look at some of the things that are part of what Joly sees as leadership that is necessary for the future we're heading into.
His experiences have motivated him to be a leader like I talk about frequently: one who places a high importance on the idea of humanity in business (i.e. you can't forget that your business isn't a robot business, but made up of people from top to bottom). He presents it as companies have 3 keys: people, business and financials. It starts with people because if a business really wants to be successful in this day and age, especially after all the changes that happened during the pandemic, you have to consider the impact your business has on society as a whole, not just the bottom (financial) line. Profits should be seen not as the end-all-be-all, but rather evidence of how successfully you're building relationships with the people who buy from you (or the lack thereof regarding your strategy or lack of connection).
As part of that people conversation, the book delves into the evolving world of compensation, motivation and incentives. Even before the pandemic started many people were rethinking what they needed in the way of support from the companies they worked for, and the pandemic only prioritized that question. What it boils down to is what used to work for people doesn't work for many people these days. The best way to get your team on board and committed to your organization is through respect, honesty, openness, listening, and truly valuing them and their contributions.
I'll close with Joly's encouragement about how to be a leader in this day and age: "Be clear about your purpose, the purpose of people around you, and how it connects with the purpose of your company." Hubert Joly's career shows that it's totally possible for leaders who are both starting out and those who have been in the leadership world for a long time can be the leaders that people need today. While some things may return to how they used to be, given that many of the things that came to light during the pandemic only became more clear and focused, it's highly unlikely that we'll ever completely return to how leadership or business used to be. Are you being the leader that your company needs in this day and age with all the changes that have happened and focused interests, needs, perspectives and plans of your people?
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