Blog: Fresh Tilled Ideas

The most valuable investment you can make in people

Posted On: April 14th 2008
By: Richard Banfield

If the most important invest you can make is not either trust or recognition then I'll be a donut without a hole. Its not money or private bathrooms in the executive suite that attracts and motivates people. It's letting them know your trust them to do the best thing for the company and for your clients. We've always been able to attract wonderfully motivated, energetic and smart people to Fresh Tilled Soil because we trust our employees to make great decisions.

My current favorite business author is Ricardo Semler. His book Maverick describes how he and his executives have slowly removed themselevs from the decision making process by increasing their trust in their staff. Combined with the appropriate recognition the people at Semco have resisted adding layers of management red tape and HR driven divisions in ordinary trust...

"We simply do not believe our employees have an interest in coming in late, leaving early, and doing as little as possible for as much money as their union can wheedle out of us. After all, these are the same people that raise children, join the PTA, elect mayors, governors, senators, and presidents. They are adults. At Semco, we treat them like adults. We trust them. We don’t make our employees ask permission to go to the bathroom, nor have security guards search them as they leave for the day. We get out of their way and let them do their jobs."