HUMAN DYNAMICS: The Most Fundamental, Overlooked Aspect of Business

The human dynamics are the most fundamental, overlooked aspect of business.

Business is the buying and selling of products and services that humans design, develop, and deliver to and with each other.

Simply stated: Business is humans doing stuff together.

In many ways, the human dynamics are overlooked because they are so fundamental. They are so foundational that they’re missed. It’s like water to the fish.

An old fish asked a young fish, “How’s the water?”

The young fish turns and asks, “What water?”

The most obvious realities can be missed.

The human dynamics are the water of business. They are what organizations are made of. They are what the entire world of business is “swimming” in.

And you’re the fish in this story.

That’s good news.

When the underlying and fundamental realities are illuminated — when they’re brought from the background to the foreground — then you have greater clarity, insight, and power in impacting those realities.

It’s very different from how we tend to relate to the human dynamics. For the most part, these realities are the most ignored, rejected, and resisted aspects of business. They’re too “soft,” “touchy-feely,” or only appropriate for the therapist’s office. Executives will invest tens of millions of dollars in a new technology platform, financial strategy, marketing launch, or an open office floor plan long before focusing on the human dynamics.

The human dynamics are relegated to one of the many teams within the broader HR/People Department. Usually under the heading of “culture” and grouped with the budget for ping pong tables, free beer on Fridays, and company BBQs. Or they’re grouped under “talent development” along with compliance trainings, mindfulness classes, and updates to the employee handbook.

Those days are coming to an end.

In today’s increasingly complex and competitive world, business leaders are recognizing that the human dynamics — how people show up, how they relate to each other, and how they do just about everything in the organization — are fundamental. It’s the unique ways of being, operating, and relating that comprise every company.

When Ray Dalio started focusing on the human dynamics, he created the largest and most successful hedge fund in the world. Steve Jobs was famous for his intense focus on how everything was done at Apple, not just on what was being done. Clients I’ve worked with are leveraging this approach to break new ground in the consulting, veterinarian, pharmaceutical, and technology industries. Developing the human dynamics is a competitive advantage that is nearly impossible for others to recreate because it’s not about a specific product, service, process, procedure, policy, or system. It’s about what is both underneath and yet threaded through all of that.

What’s possible is that the human dynamics take their rightful place at the top of the priorities of business leaders, not because they “should” or because it’s the “right” or “nice” thing to do, but because it’s essential to the future success of their organization.

When the human dynamics are deeply connected and integrated with the vision and strategy of the organization, it naturally accelerates growth, results, and profitability. It’s creates a truly creative, fulfilling and collaborative environment and an aligned workforce.

This isn’t more company retreats, off-sites, leadership programs, workshops, or trainings.

This is a whole new level of focus and sensitivity to the human dynamics of the enterprise. It is human-centered and results-driven leadership, effective and authentic communication, trust, radical collaboration and creativity, and the deep alignment of the vision, strategy, and people.

It’s investing in and developing your own skills in the human dynamics. It’s also hiring the right experts and specialists in the human dynamics, in the same way you’d hire experts and specialists in legal, strategy, branding, and finance.

If this sounds like a lot, it is.

It’s a new paradigm — a new way of doing business.

Actually, it’s not even that. This is simply illuminating what is already happening. That’s why this message doesn’t need to be believed or taken on faith. It’s what is already at play in the business world. The human dynamics are impacting every facet of your organization, whether you like it or not, whether you acknowledge it or not.

The fish is swimming in water, whether it knows it or not.