Based on a TEDtalk by Simon Sinek on leadership. Written by Lak Loi
Head Count, Heart Count
An organisation led by Charlie Kim, CEO of NextJump NYC, stated, why do organisations layoff people when they underperform. In your family when one of your kids comes back home with a ‘C’ grade mark, you don’t ‘lay them off,’ but instead you coach them through it. On the back of this simple philosophy, he created a policy of lifetime employment.
When organisations are in a financial situation, it is common practice to cut head count to save money rather than consider the heart count. Employees are often upset, not because of the disproportionate money difference between the senior managers salaries and bonuses versus the employees, but rather the violation that the senior management put themselves ahead of their people, a violation of the definition of leadership, a violation of a deep seeded social contract, a violation of their own interests ahead of their people’s they represent. It was never about the numbers. They did not count the hearts, they counted the heads.
Great leaders would sacrifice the numbers to save the people, rather than save the numbers and sacrifice the people. Great leaders would sacrifice themselves for their people – this is the true definition of a ‘Sifu,’ your teacher.
Bob Chapman who runs an organisation called Barry Weh-Miller was hit hard by the recession in 2008, and his orders dropped by 30%. His organisation needed to save $10 million dollars, and his board advised him to cut the head count. Bob was adamant that he did not want to layoff people, and decided to offer people an opportunity to take 4 weeks unpaid holiday, and it did not have to be consecutive, to save this amount. It was the way he announced it that touched the hearts of his people. He said,
‘It’s better if we all suffer a little,
than anyone suffer a lot.’
Before you knew it, those people who could afford to take more unpaid holiday, started to swap their unpaid holiday with those who could not. The employees saved the company $20M, because the sense of morale went up because they knew the company put the employees interests first, not the senior staffs self interest. They did not feel violated, and went out of their way to help the organisation. It is because they chose to look after the person to their left and to their right.
Leadership is a choice, not a rank. I know authorities who tell you what to do, but you won’t go out of your way for them. I know people with no authority at the bottom of the ranks, who are absolute leaders. You would follow them because you want to.
That is the true mark of a leader. They go first, so they take the risk so their colleagues don’t have to, they sacrifice first to protect their people, and the natural response to that is, our people will sacrifice for us. They will sacrifice their blood, sweat and tears to see their leaders vision come to life. And when asked,
‘Why did you do that?’
they say,
‘Because they would’ve done it for me.’
Now isn’t that the kind of ‘family’ organisation you want to work in?