Success doesn’t come alone. Maybe you have just patented your invention, won a crucial bidding contest, or secured seed money for your business – still, success doesn’t come alone. Success always starts with people – you and the others.
America’s new Vice President-elect Kamala Harris delivered a victory speech that will go down in history as one of the most memorable speeches; “While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last”. During her moment of victory, she didn’t talk about herself, but about other people. The people without whom her moment of victory would never have happened.
Yes, we can!
We have a dream.
It is unlikely that Apple would be the booming tech giant it is today if it had only focussed on the circuit boards inside their products rather than on user experience: the joy that comes from using the products.
Scandinavian design is a success story which wasn’t born out of accomplished designers being enthralled by their own creative genius. The Nordic design movement – now an institution in its own right – was created by users of design. Users who wanted to design chairs that are as comfortable as possible to as many as possible.
They say that the key to a successful business idea is to find a problem that you can offer a solution to. The whys, the hows and the whats are of course all relevant questions.
But first, we should ask the who question. Who are you doing the work with and who for? Whose problem are you solving, whose life are you making easier, who are you going to make happy? When you find out the people pertinent to your work, you will also find out how they are pertinent. And there you’ll have it – a concrete need which you can meet and create added value in the process.
Results are always created by people, therefore people are key. People form teams, teams form organisations, organisations form cultures. And as we well know, culture eats strategy for breakfast, washing it down with budgets, seed funding and all.
That is why any funder investing in a new start-up will analyse the core business team particularly carefully. A bad team can easily dilute the potential of an otherwise promising business idea, whereas a brilliant team might turn even an average idea into a success.
Whether you are starting up a business or a project, recruiting staff to grow your company or expanding into new markets, success is more likely when your focus is on people. On the right people. Ken Krogue writes aptly about the central role of the ‘who’ in creating successful sales strategies.
Focus on your customers, employees, suppliers and collaborators as people. If you’re looking at your stakeholder group as a mere faceless mass, you will end up creating mere faceless mass; something which doesn’t stand out, which doesn’t impress anyone, and least of all, bring about success.
So, start by asking ‘who’. And go straight towards the answer.
