I went to a CFO conference last week. Jeff Klein jumps up to the stage. A fit fiftyish man takes off his sport coat, no tie and he animatedly starts his talk. You could almost hear the attendees wonder why he took his jacket off. Yours truly was in jeans - no jacket. Times are clearly changing.
Anyway Jeff starts his talk about conscious capitalism. The world is about people. And the X-Y generations have no interested in the yuppie greed. They want flex time, commute working, the ability to take time off for charitable events.
This excitable speaker kept us awake - no coffee needed. The point is this - work is more than the bottom line - its about your people. If your people are happy and fulfilled you will get ten times the productivity, and a much happier work force. When I was at Bubba Burger my mantra was always your life trumps your job. If there was an assembly for your kids or, ballgame or whatever - that is important. There was one caveat. Get your work done - before or after hours or remotely.
Yesterday I went to meet with my successor. We met about an hour or so. My former staff knew everything that had to be done. The questions for me were rather mundane. That was because my ship ran without me. My team was trained, cross trained, and they new what needed to be done on their own. Sure the CFO was needed to make decisions, but not for daily tasks. My successor will have a smooth transition, which meant I did my job, and my team could work without babysitting.
As always - Its about people. Happy people. Respected people. Period!
Check out http://www.consciouscapitalism.org/ and http://www.workingforgood.com/
