It’s a question Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia (supporting the heartbeat of the 800+ employees at Gary Vaynerchuk’s agency) is asked, “Why People Matter in Business?”
After all, Claude was chosen by Gary to do internally for the Vayner culture what Gary was doing out in the world.
Recently, in a heart-to-heart LinkedIn LIVE discussion, Claude and I discussed the most important asset in business: its people. Let’s face some facts:
- In business, it comes down to people
- When inspiring change, it comes down to people
- When it comes to leaving a legacy, it comes down to people.
So we talked about the importance of people to companies and to brands, and their impact on the world.
Any Great Leader Will Tell You Why People Matter in Business
During this conversation, there was one exchange of ideas that Claude and I had that left a definite impression.
Claude conveyed, “I want to encourage everyone I meet to remind them that, wherever they are is where they are, and to try not to judge that and maybe just to be curious about it. And remember that they’re not going to be there forever.”
Then Claude said, “You know what I think would be really great and I don’t know if many people know what you do and can you just share a little bit about why… so, you’re a branding guru. You’re a people person. Like, where does that… how do you create space for people within a brand?”
I replied, “That’s a brilliant question. And the thing that I love about that question is this: is that, I find the clients and companies that I work with where they go off the rails is when they think the thing they’ve made is the thing that matters and they lose sight of themselves as the thing that brought that into existence.
“It’s like people go around, ‘Wow, what made that happen?’ It’s kind of like being in a concert and you’re hearing this amazing music and you just you go like, ‘Wow, that’s great.’ And you’re like ‘Where’s it coming from?’
“There’s a bunch of talented people standing on the stage right there. And if you notice, they’re actually playing instruments and they’re singing songs and they’re doing various things. They’re the people, they’re the place where it’s coming from. Let’s not lose sight of them.
“And that’s the thing with regard to people. That’s the thing with regard to brands. I love giving people back themselves.”
When people matter, important brands will follow.
Here are some gold nuggets from the above discussion.
Value your people. Your brand will follow.