The Best Robot Wins预览

When I look back on my life and career, I understand the factors that contributed to my success: fail quickly and adapt fast, surround myself with great mentors and leaders, and strike a balance between strategy and leadership.

Know yourself so you can surround yourself with people that possess strengths that are your weaknesses. You alone are not enough. 1 Corinthians 12:14-27 (NIV) explains it perfectly:

Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

By recognizing the Bible as the best and most useful business book in your library, you can appreciate the inherent value of diverse humans and foster an environment of inclusion. This allows the pendulum to rest in the middle between strategy and leadership. With an understanding of the collective power of people, processes, and parables, you’re ready to maximize your competitive advantage by rehumanizing your workforce.

I challenge you to remember a time in your career and life when someone—a boss, coworker, family member, coach, mentor, or friend—recognized your unique giftings. They believed in you, engaged you, inspired you to become better, and ultimately helped you grow. How did their faith in you make you feel? Did it make you want to work harder? Did it give you new insight into your strengths? Did it empower you to try and do new things? 

With that in mind, I encourage you to remember the "Golden Rule": “Do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12, NIV). Be that person for someone else.

When you can attract, develop, retain, and engage the right individuals within your organization, a true competitive advantage emerges. Processes and systems should be created to inspire, support, and fuel your human workers. Human capital has the unique advantage of serving, adapting, and growing your customer base in a way that will help you yield a crop a hundred times more than what was sown.