Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family – A Book Review

I believe I always intuitively knew that the way we treat people has a profound and lasting impact on their performance, and that the way we treat the one is the way that we are capable of treating the many. So ask yourself, how are you treating everybody you interact with – in your company, your family, the community? Caring for people in a deep way helps them live up to their full and unlimited potential and drives the performance of the business in a positive way – although I must admit that over the years, I’ve struggled with the notion that simply caring about people would be enough to move the needle on certain financial indicators.  However, Bob Chapman, chairman of Barry-Wehmiller and author of the book “Everybody Matters,” clearly and eloquently paints the picture of how their emphasis on building great people and measuring success by the way they touch people’s lives has a positive impact on overall business results.

Chapman’s company focuses on creating value for all stakeholders and envisions a business culture that puts people first, one in which success is measured not in numbers but in the way they touch the lives of the people they interact with.

Their first revelation for new ways of leading and inspiring people was simply asking the question, why can’t business be fun? While many of you are leading serious businesses, is it possible that you and your leadership team are taking yourselves too seriously? What can you do to lighten things up a bit and make things fun – and therefore more fulfilling?

From asking this simple but rather powerful question of how to make work more fun, Chapman next created their Guiding Principles of Leadership. Some examples of these principles include:

• Leadership creates a dynamic environment.
• Positive, insightful communication empowers individuals and teams.
• Treat people superbly and compensate them fairly.
• We are responsible for the stewardship of the Guiding Principles.

They stress that leadership is responsible for creating a dynamic environment based on trust and that brings out and celebrates the best in each individual. One gets the sense that leadership at Barry-Wehmiller is more about being and creating the right conditions for people at all levels so the organization can flourish.

This is a must-read for the pragmatic left-brain business leader who may be sapping the life out of his or her organization by using people to build products and make money, as opposed to using their products and services to build people.