Page 38 - How to Drive the Bottom Line with People

Built to Serve

of America’s best-known biotech firms and number one
on Fortune’s 2006 list of the 100 Best Companies to

Work For, understands the concept of directing and
focusing energy on employees and customers while still
providing an exceptional return to shareholders.

Businesses today focus an enormous amount of
time on financial performance but appear to be indif-
ferent to the way employees are valued and treated.
We pore over profit-and-loss statements and obsess
over quarterly financial reports, which prompt a litany

of questions regarding past activities. We analyze
financial statements formatted to suit a nineteenth-
14
= century manufacturing plant—statements that neatly

categorize me as an expense of the business, but the
computer I am working on as an asset of the business.
It is time to change.
The most important questions should be those that
ascertain the organization’s potential and assess how

best to unleash the power of the workforce. One rea-
son for our fixation on past performance is that it is
easier to see where you have been than to accurately

predict where you are going. To predict the future, you
need to understand an organization’s potential, which
requires knowing how to maximize the talents of the
people you employ. This is where culture matters most.