Humans Are Hard

You’ve probably heard someone say, “people are our greatest asset”. I think that’s true. What you may not have heard so much is that as a company, people could also be our biggest liability. I believe this to be true as well.

If a company is to be measured based on the value its employees create, then the biggest risk a company can face is when those employees are ill-equipped to perform their roles.

People bring ambition, drive, curiosity, and a whole host of skills and talents to work everyday. We rely on past experiences and intuition to make good decisions and to be creative. We persevere through challenges, we learn and adapt, we brainstorm, and we observe others. We are a combination of so many capabilities and qualities that we are, in fact, the most versatile of tools on the planet.

Yet we aren’t perfect. We also bring emotions, doubt, anxieties, jealousy, and (sometimes) a dose of unhealthy competition. We may have underdeveloped skills or we may feel uncomfortable asking for help. We all have biases – some that, individually, we may be unaware of. At times we may lack empathy for our coworkers, behave dismissively, or succumb to mood swings.

Humans are hard.

But at the end of the day, humans are both our greatest asset and our biggest liability.

Companies who promote self awareness, inclusiveness, and provide a clear path of development for their employees are the ones that will unlock their human's greatest potential.