People Over Profit Summary
4 min read ⌚
Do you remember the chicken and the egg dilemma?
I will rephrase it. I’ll put it in this book’s context:
“Which came first, the leader or the company?”
As simple as this question may seem, as complicated the answer is. You have to take a complete journey through 3 chapters and 5 eras to find out which are the key concepts in order to define the solution.
Can we live in a better world? Can we change the power of example the world we are living in? Should the world adapt to leaders or the leaders to the world?
If you are searching the answers to these questions you can find them in Dale Partridge ‘s book: People over profit. Break the system. Live with purpose. Be more successful.
THE PATH OF CHANGE / PEOPLE OVER PROFIT
Break the system and live with purpose while being even more successful. @dalepartridge Click To Tweet
“People Over Profit Summary”
The author dedicated his life to making a difference and challenge the way of thinking of leaders, of all of us. He is trying to make a change through his example of leading with a “people over profit” mentality.
People over profit is structured in three parts. Each part describes a situation or moment that we can find ourselves in.
- The cycle we’re stuck in. Where do we stand? Where do we intend to go? If we keep in our pocket the complete and honest answer to this questions, the next step may be to go on the path that Dale advises us to go. The path of the goodness and rightness of each other.
- With understanding comes change. We are given all the good concepts, how we can act and value people. How can we give more value to our life, our friends and everything we do and touch?
- Break the system for “good”. How we can make our lives better, what action we have to take. How to react. How to act in every situation in our path in the world.
The first part of the book is to clear up the situation for all companies that want to change their direction. Every company at the beginning is starting with an era of honesty and truth.
“The Honest Era is a time in a company’s journey when mission, quality, and integrity live at the core of the organization.”
Now it’s the time when the companies are more focused on satisfying customers. In order to do that competitive teams are created to work with. For Dale Partridge, this is a good argument for defining the present time as a great one with a clear focus on leaders, benefits for both company and customers, and long-term strategies.
Our human nature is designed to tirelessly seek more and more performance and efficiency.
“A love for efficiency comes honestly to most people, having been implanted by their parents at a young age”
This proves that the Efficient Era begins. “An era of people and profit, where companies are trying to value both, even though one side always ends up losing.”
This era is usually described by terms as struggle and choices. This is the moment when the company is choosing her path to go from now on. If the leaders are blind and have a limited vision about the way things should be done, probably the long-term strategy will fail.
What would happen if the leaders took the wrong decisions? Choose the wrong way to manage things? It would be the born of a new era: The Deceptive Era. An era of a poor management conducted by leaders “blinded by their short-lived financial success, organizations begin to flail by almost every other marker.” This is when the company’s leaders are going to do everything possible to gain more profit. “An era of lies and Distortion. And, above all, this is an era of profit over people.
This kind of leading is wrong. You may already conclude it by yourself. Dale also says clearly in his book: putting a great accent on effects.
“History demonstrates that when companies enter the Deceptive Era en masse, it always leads to recession.”
Fortunately, even in this era of lies and poor management, there is room for good changes.
Let’s say we find ourselves in this situation. Everything is going apart and we are searching for new ways to overcome failures.
It’s not too late to start again and try to fix everything that was going in the wrong direction. It is time for our company to enter the Apologetic Era. This is a moment to recover and reinvent our company brand. Now we can find out which is our purpose and follow it…
“The Apologetic Era is about restoring. Restoring confidence. Restoring trust. Restoring health. Restoring faith. Restoring hope, mission, quality, and accountability. It’s about restoring transparency and compassion.”
Naturally, after a preview like this, we are hunted by a key question: What can I do to have the Honest Era on my side as a long-term strategy?
Dale gives us a very good answer and he teaches us how we can act and react to be in the same era of the transparency and truth. To go on further in the “people over profit era”. This era is as simple as it sounds: we all should contribute to make a better world and change the system.
Maybe the most precious lesson we should learn from Dale’s books is to learn to make a difference. More healthy minds can create a healthy environment, a healthy world. The change may start at an individual level but, definitely, grow stronger and stronger collectively.
'Together we can create a world even more wonderful than we might imagine.' @dalepartridge Click To Tweet
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Emir is the Head of Marketing at 12min. In his spare time, he loves to meditate and play soccer.
