All Business Problems are People Problems

A Series of Problems

If you have identified a crucial need in the market but don't have the innovative staff to find a solution, your business problem is a people problem.

If you have an innovative solution to a market need but can't engineer it, your business problem is a people problem.

If you created a groundbreaking product but can't sell it effectively, your business problem is a people problem.

If you sell the top product on the market but have a terrible customer service rating, your business problem is a people problem.

Practically every challenge your organization faces, apart from regulatory issues or attempts to violate the laws of physics, comes down to an issue of people.

Hiring the right people for the role will represent the solution, while hiring people misaligned to their role will represent the source of the problem.

Once you've identified a problem in the market, a niche you think you can fill, you must rely on people who are hardwired to seek the most innovative and effective solution. These individuals are programmed at the most innate and fundamental level to find answers to challenging problems. You want someone who thrives on finding solutions.

You've hired your innovators and they brilliantly created your solution to the market's need. Now you need a different kind of innovator to find the most cost-effective way to turn that solution into a marketable product or service. These people understand things like efficiency-of-scale and logistics, cost-effectiveness and time-to-market. They turn your creative idea into something you can sell at a profit.

Your innovators and engineers have produced a cost-effective product. How do you sell it? You hire the people who are hardwired to connect with customers, people who can intuitively read the room and find the emotional triggers that motivate them to eagerly and enthusiastically pay for your solution. You need people who build consensus and establish connections, people who understand that the greatest product in the world won't sell itself.

Even if you're the first to sell sliced bread, customer service issues can still crop up. What happens when something goes wrong and the customer rings you up to say, "My bread's too dry!" You need customer service people that can empathetically connect with the customer and make them genuinely know that you will take care of them. You need people whose very essence and natural drive is to help others.

Managing all of these people are leaders who define the appropriate mission for the organization and motivate everyone to pull toward that common goal. They inspire the entire team and give everyone a sense of purpose, that what they do matters and is appreciated. These leaders understand the value of putting the right people into the right seats and they utilize the best tools and methods available to make that happen.

Everything Begins in Hiring

From concept to execution to market dominance, achieving the organization's mission begins with a great hire. If you put the right people into the right seats, you have laid the foundation for success.

If you hire the wrong people, you're just hammering a square peg into a round hole. The competition will thank you for it.

For those following along at home, this article describes the four primary core value energies measured by the Core Values Index (CVI), the most reliable and accurate psychometric assessment on the market today. Every person has a particular combination of these core energies within them, represented on a scale from 0 to 36.

The four core value energies are:

• Builder - power and action
• Merchant - intuition and emotional connection
• Innovator - problem solving and wisdom
• Banker - knowledge gathering and justice

Take the Core Values Index psychometric assessment and find out how much of these innate personality energies dwell within you.