I’m partway through Susan Scott’s book Fierce Leadership: A Bold Alternative to the Worst “Best” Practices of Business Today, and she is talking about how companies now must connect with their customers on a human level, that the days of just having a good product are gone. With everyone fighting to get the consumer’s cash, and the price battle at full tilt, having something special, the human connection, is what will win over your clients.
Here’s a quick excerpt from her book:
In 2002 the Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to Daniel Kahneman, a psychology professor at Princeton, whose studies proved beyond any doubt that we have emotionally first, rationally second. This is not a new age thing. Or cultural thing. It is the human condition.
The implications are stunning, particularly for companies that have a relationship with their customers based primarily on price and a relationship with their employees based on an exchange of time and talent for paycheck.
Greatness in individuals and organizations is not a function of intelligence…but the emotional capital, the ability to connect with people on human level. And each of us accumulates or loses emotional capital – building relationships we enjoy ordering tour with colleagues, bosses, customers, and other partners – one conversation at a time. Without relationships we have no voltage. The first company in any industry that significantly improves its human connectivity skills will take the field.
What she is saying is that it doesn’t matter if every employee you hire has a PhD. If they don’t know how to connect with clients on an emotional (human) level, then your business will lose.