Your biggest growth challenge? Human nature.

Have you ever heard a saying that goes something like this:

"If it weren't for the people and the clients, this business would be easy!"

While it's a funny and incredibly ironic saying in professional services, it also highlights a simple truth:

The people aspect of growing and scaling a firm is incredibly hard.

It's ok to recognize that!

And while the client service aspect is important, I want to focus on the other "people" in this saying—the people inside the firm.

I recently heard someone say something I thought was absolutely brilliant:

"Human nature is undefeated."

To me, that means humans are more likely to think and behave in certain ways because of the way we're hard-wired.

The thing is, many of those tendencies directly contradict the types of mindsets and actions needed to BREAK THE MOLD™ and create differentiated outcomes for our firms.

So as leaders trying to grow and scale an organization, I'd argue the idea that "human nature is undefeated" has massive implications for our efforts:

1. We need to understand what it is about human nature that gets in the way of our strategy execution and growth efforts.

2. We need to understand what to make of this information.

3. We need to employ some specific strategies to actively overcome aspects of human nature.

Today, I'll share my perspective on each of these so you are better positioned to understand and navigate human nature so it doesn't prohibit your growth efforts.

What should we know about human nature?

Of course, with any generalization, there will be exceptions to the rule.

Everyone is unique, I get that.

From my experience having led an organization of 6,000+ people (and my experiences walking the earth for nearly 6 decades), when I heard, "Human nature is undefeated", it made me think of the following tendencies and mindsets that most of us share:

• Fear of the unknown

• Resistance to change

• Favoring objectivity vs subjectivity

• An inclination toward control

• "Good enough is good enough."

• "What got us here has worked, why change it?"

• "I don't have time to do more."

• "I need to do it myself."

At face value, these aren't necessarily issues. Hell, they're part of the human DNA that's helped us survive for generations. That's got some value...

But when we apply these mindsets in the context of business—especially when we're trying to transform and scale a firm—they become more of an issue.

What's the problem?

Each of these mindsets and tendencies can be a derailer to executing strategy (with the ultimate goal of becoming a relevant and sustainable firm).

How are they derailers? Because being relevant and sustainable requires consistent progress and transformation. As the marketplace evolves, our organizations must evolve with it.

And doing so requires things like:

• Taking steps into the unknown

• Being willing to change the way things have always been done

• Embracing some things are better as part science and part art

• Not accepting "good enough" in pursuit of greatness

• ​Building engines to overcome the limitations of humans (finite time & energy)

Notice those things are ALL directly against human nature? That's where the greatest challenge lies and why the saying, "If it weren't for the people and clients, this business would be easy", exists.

The key to succeeding as an organization is all about embracing and compensating for human nature again, and again, and again...

So what should we do about it?

Human nature is like a force; I don't think you can ever eliminate or overcome it.

Human nature isn't the enemy. It's something we should recognize and consider, not fight against.

So, I encourage you do to two things with this information:

1) Embrace human nature.

There isn't always a "fix" for everything. In some cases, the most useful thing to do is to simply call out human nature and embrace it.

I was in a recent conversation with a practice leader and as we were trying to navigate a challenging personnel situation, we took a moment to pause, look at each other, and say, "Human nature, huh? It's undefeated."

It brought a smile to both our faces and served as a reminder to embrace our humanity and recognize that sometimes, trying to change human nature is a battle we're unlikely to win.

2) Compensate for human nature.

The best companies find ways to compensate for human nature and mitigate the negative influences.

As a leader, that means factoring human nature into the way you lead and operate.

• Do things with people, instead of to them

• Build a culture of transparency and candor

• Tell people the what and why

• Always consider and communicate what's in it for them

• Take the time to communicate 1:1 to explain and address fears

• Build engines to do things for/with/in spite of people

Ultimately, it's about centering ourselves around the humanity of things.

We're in a people business.

It's both a challenging and incredibly rewarding reality.

Embrace it. Compensate for it. And go forward and do great things.

See you next week.

With intention,
Alan D Whitman

P.S. If you missed them, here are the previous articles that were part of this series on the things that kill strategy execution:

​Things that Kill Strategy Execution #1: Compensation​

​(Part 1) Things that Kill Strategy Execution #2: Objectors​

​(Part 2) Things that Kill Strategy Execution #2: Objectors