It was a day when the words of the old song came to mind! The lesson began when I read that, after the 9/11 attack on the twin towers, “The more workers an airline laid off, the longer it took for their customers to return.”  (Rick Frazier interview in “Firms of Endearment.”)  I was particularly struck by the impact on customers. The effect on profits you might have anticipated, but not the effect on customers.

The lesson was reinforced when I watched the evening news with all the reports on the chaos being caused by cancelled flights. The reports claimed that the root cause of the problem was the difficulty in replacing employees who had been laid off during the Covid pandemic. Many might simply ascribe the situation to the “law of unintended consequences.” I would, however, ascribe it to the failure to properly value employees.

“The motherlode of wealth runs not through the executive corridors but through the vocational landscape of frontline employees.” I know I quoted this, from “Firms of Endearment: How World Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose” by Raj Sisodia, Jag Sheth and David Wolfe, in my last piece.  The truth that underpins the words, however, is so powerful that I believe they are worth repeating, and cannot be stated too often! It should be at the forefront of every business leader’s, if not every businessperson’s, mind.

Why?