by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc®

“The ‘profiteer-faction’ just views people as headcount; whereas true people-leaders view them as vital resources.”

Traditionally when the topic of resources is raised in a business environment people immediately think of money. That’s because we have been so thoroughly conditioned to the mantras of profits, budgets, capital and cash flow. Clearly these are prized possessions in the organization world, especially with the “profiteer-faction,” although there are many other key resource components, too. Putting the horse before the cart, it’s quite possible to generate cash flow, capital and profits from scratch by bringing people into the picture first. By having capital without people nothing will happen.

We’re always aware of the other vital resources required to build successful ventures besides people and money: namely capable leaders, intellectual capital, equipment, facilities, effective systems, advisors and ‘yes’ even precious time. But even these factors are inextricably linked to people. So we often find ourselves facing a particular dual key resource conundrum: those money resources relished by “profiteers” and those others that are desired by “people-leaders.”

For long enough the profiteer- factions have won out because they’ve traditionally been the ones providing capital for start-up ventures – with many strings attached. Throw a certain amount of money at a given opportunity, marshal sufficient headcount, and with luck a whole lot of profit will come pouring out. At least that was the thinking and formula utilized in the earlier days of the industrial revolution. In some ways and in a good number of today’s organizational minds, we haven’t moved so very far from that scenario.

Steadily and surely at the expense of wars and societal upheaval the people faction have made ground in this two-way tussle. As people have become better educated and developed prized skills, along with organized labor backing, this faction have gained more bargaining power and the profiteers have sought ways to keep the peace by throwing more money and benefits – or more bones – in their direction to sustain their people’s efforts. The profiteers began to understand that instead of viewing people as just pairs-of-hands, their people-resource possessed the potential to considerably expand their contributions. Hence people became significantly more valuable; often times they became more capricious in their work efforts and their “messy” bargaining power became stronger.

As organizations, products and services have become more sophisticated to meet customer demands, workplace people’s expectations and their bargaining power have squeezed profits too much. So the profiteers have turned to new resources, i.e. technology, to take the place of people. They have therefore increasingly invested considerable resources in automation, robots, and elegant computer systems to retain their profit margins and exert greater control over their financial ambitions. Political eyes have already rested on that 1% which has used technology to enormous financial advantage.

So much is at play right now, which could haunt generations and societies to come. Who will win the upper hand in the automation and artificial intelligence (AI) resource skirmishes that are destined to occur as we go forward? Do these burgeoning technologies continue to flourish so that people resources become increasingly sidelined; or do we find a solid balance between people and technological potential? This is the vital positioning and pathfinding question more enlightened leaders have to figure out in the future.

Perhaps another faction will emerge – the “people-profiteers.” These will be more advanced people-leaders, who will undoubtedly envisage technology that can address many of the routine aspects of their ventures while they draw upon the incredible, hidden growth potential and creativity of their workplace people. Their people will many times add intangible, common sense value to so many situations: aspects beyond the range of AI. This will be the alternative balancing act of the future – handling routine requirements through AI and then over-layering them with significant added human thinking and value.

Once these battles have been fought by humans over technology, so the people-profiteers are likely to prevail and a new societal equilibrium will emerge. With some luck such leaders will come into their own sooner rather than later. They will embrace a range of technology and systems to take care of people’s daily routine requirements – shuttling us from point A to point B, creating and moving mundane products from robot filled shop-floors to consumer homes, providing commodity level entertainment and dining services for economic-minded buyers, keeping our neighborhoods clean, and offering a menu of daily communication links for a variety purposes.

On the other hand, they will encourage more advanced education through Socratic teachers along with insightful media for inspiring people to enhance their hidden ability to think. As curiosity levels rise, based upon our brain’s enormous potential, so people will conjure up all sorts of added and premium value to their lives. Today’s older generations have seen enormous gains in their lifetimes – from outhouses to automated bathrooms, from steam engines to automated, high-speed shuttles, from simple propeller driven aircraft to supersonic flight, and so on. One can only imagine the advances to be made within half the time by properly harnessing our available, younger human potential. How would you like to see things evolve with the aid of “people-profiteers”?

To find out more about your position and pathfind approach, talk with: