Page 14 - How to Drive the Bottom Line with People

Foreword

place) has to do with winning for the owners. It’s as
if to say, “Yes, people are important, very important,

but they are basically a means to an end—the end
being profits.” I often then counter with, “But if you
see the people you’re working with as partners, includ-

ing your customers (which this book clearly teaches),
would not the ultimate criterion by which everything
will be evaluated by all stakeholders have to do with
how well everyone’s needs are really served?” It
becomes impossible to separate these elements into

independent entities or dimensions. It is clearly a
social-ecological reality. The ultimate criterion that
xii
= people use at the end of the day is how well all stake-

holder needs are being served.
To paraphrase Arnold Toynbee, the great historian,
you can summarize the history of all institutions,
nations, as well as societies and civilizations in four sim-
ple words: “Nothing fails like success.” In other words,

if your response is equal to the challenge of today’s real-
ity, you’ll have success. But if you’re in a new challenge,
the old successful response fails. That is essentially what

is happening today. We’re in a new reality, a new,
global, digitized economy. The old industrial model of
top-down command and control, even “kind” com-
mand and control, no longer works unless you are