The Most Important Decisions You Make Are Regarding Your People

Peter Drucker is universally known as the “father of management theory.” After his death in 2005, Businessweek magazine called his work “a blueprint for every thinking leader.”

Over the last 6 months, I have spent a significant amount of time re-acquainting myself with his work. I had first read many of his works while I was growing in my career at USLIFE.

From this recent review, I learned or re-learned many things. However, two of his statements were very interesting to me. They were:

“Executives spend more time on managing people and making people decisions than on anything else – and they should. No other decisions are so long lasting in their consequences and so difficult to unmake.”

“Of all the decisions an executive makes, none are as important as the decisions about people because they determine the performance capacity of the organization. Therefore, one should better make sure that these decisions are made well.”

So how important are these two concepts? Consider the following:

Your teams (people) execute the strategy and vision you have set for your company.

Your teams, in many cases, are the first point of contact for a prospect considering whether or not to buy your product or service.

Your teams’ daily interaction with your customers will either grow your business or kill it.

If you agree with any or all of the above statements then why…

Do some of you spend more time studying the McDonalds drive-through menu than you do considering whether or not to hire a new employee?

Do you easily complain about the service you get, but are reluctant to address service issues within your own business?

Do you quickly criticize a team member’s performance, but rarely acknowledge when they do something right?

Do you readily spend (waste) money on poorly conceived marketing campaigns, but question the need to invest in the training and development of your team, who can actually make you money?

​​​As Drucker said, “Of all the decisions an executive makes, none are as important as the decisions about people because they determine the performance capacity of the organization.”