Gary Ong | September 18th, 2021

What goes through your mind when you interact with the people around you, day in and day out? Are you impressed by the kindness of one, the tenacity of another, or the compassionate insight of a third? Or perhaps, none of this crosses your mind at all. The people are just shadows that wander around you: every person the same, every act indifferent.

In a startup, it can be easy to forget that people are people. On a Gantt chart, people are just dots and tabs, resources to be allocated to complete a task. They feel replaceable, void of any character, personality or human need. We measure them as non-human entities too. We go for efficiency, speed, and hours rather than helpfulness, empathy and moral character. In time, we may wonder, why can’t people just behave more like machines. Then at the very least, they’ll be easier to lead.

But if you ask anyone who has successfully led an uncertain project to fruition, they will all tell you the same thing: it’s all about the team and the people. Give the best idea to the wrong people, and the project will fail. Give a bad idea to the right people and they’ll fix it and make it work. So if you want to change the world, believe in people. Don’t treat them like machines. Lead them and treat them well. Things don’t change the world, people do.

Image credit: Joseph Redfield Nino