As I am enjoying those days the well known book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. I actually stopped for a while in front of what he calls "P/PC Balance", P stands for Production of desired results and PC stands for Production Capacity, which is the asset that makes the production whether this asset is physical (like a machine for example), financial or human. He is claiming that paying more attention to the results (Production) while neglecting the asset itself would end up with a huge loss of the asset and so the production. This sounds very logical, because if one kept using a machine day and night without maintenance the machine will wear out and there will be no more production. But what about the human type of asset, which is far more important. I would like to start with what he mentioned about the human asset in an organization:
"There are organizations that talk a lot about the customer and then completely neglect the people that deal with the customer -- the employees. The PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is. You can buy his back, but you can't buy his brain. That's where his creativity is, his ingenuity, his resourcefulness. PC work is treating employees as volunteers just as you treat customers as volunteers, because that's what they are. They volunteer the best part -- their hearts and minds." p.58
I think it is far beyond just good treatment. I think it is part of the organization's role is to enrich its employees' knowledge, personality, ethics. This can make the employee feel that he is a valuable asset for the organization, here comes the loyalty. Here the organization is really investing in the PC. lets imagine this scenario, An organization says: "The employee is the only responsible for upgrading his knowledge. The organization is not responsible of any kind of payment or time flexibility. If the employee wants to get a promotion he should upgrade his own knowledge". How on earth an employee will be loyal??!!.
The P/PC Balance principle works for personal relationships too. Stephen gave few examples of marriage and children relationships.
According to what I got from part of the book, one should care about the source that brings him the results he desire as much as he cares about the result.
What do you think about this principle?
I wanted to share this part of the book with you, Thanks :)
