It doesn’t matter if you are a new HR leader or you’ve been in your role for 25 years. You need a seat at the senior table, even if you are required to bring your own chair.

What I have learned in over 30 years helping world-class organizations become good to great is the only way to do it is with a great OD and HR team. After all, Human Resources are the most valuable asset and truly the ones that can appreciate the most over time.

Most organizations say it but just don’t behave like it.

If you are in a new role or if you’re an old-timer, here is something I think might help in these interesting, challenging times we are in today.

The talent is always the most important thing to focus on. Today many organizations are forced to because they are finding it hard to attract or retain the talent needed to keep the doors open or staff properly. The best organizations have always known what many of us are now facing; without the right people, there is no business.

People serve other people. Until the day we are all doing business with robots and kiosks, people are still the most important thing to focus on.

Many organizations have forgotten this and are getting a rude awakening with the war for talent in this pandemic era. The thing is; employees know the difference.

What do I mean by this? It reminds of an old joke I used to tell when I was on the circuit.

Oh, by the way, this joke is centered where I live, in Denali Alaska, the top of the world. If I could work from anywhere it would be here so that’s where I am.

I bought a small resort from an old couple and I’ll never forget when I first met them they were on their rocking chairs on the secluded lakes in Denali, Alaska. This eighty-year-old couple had been married for 60 years. I thought it was the cutest thing they rocked their chairs on the side of the lake until I saw the husband whack his wife across the shins with the cane he had on his rocker arm.

I sat across the lake in my cabin in shock and a little bit of disbelief as I saw the wife shriek in pain and scream, “What the heck was that for?”

The husband said, “Honey I’m sorry. I may have overreacted. I was just thinking back. We have had 60 years of bad sex.”

I couldn’t believe what the husband had just said.

However, I only had a second to recover from the direct statement the husband made when the wife, after rocking a mere 2-3 times in her chair had picked up her cane and whacked her husband across the shins and over the head, knocking him off his rocker.

I sat there not knowing to laugh or cry at what I had just seen. What the wife said next definitely made me laugh. When the husband gathered himself and sat back down on his rocker he looked at his wife and said, “Now what the heck was that for?”

She said simply, “Knowing the difference.”

Your employees know the difference between an experience that is legendary and one that is ordinary. In these crazy times don’t wait 60 years to find out the experiences you are creating are not the ones your customers or your employees want.

If you want to attract the best talent and importantly keep the talent you have, you better be creating exceptional experiences for your employees and your customers day to day, moment to moment.

Why?

They know the difference.

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