We love to think of our organizations as well-oiled machines. We pour endless hours into policies, procedures, oversight, and feedback mechanisms—all to ensure this machine delivers the same reliable output, day after day. It’s a neat analogy. It simplifies a complex system. But is it accurate?

Everyone loves a good metaphor, and they readily creep into corporate settings—particularly when talking about an organization at scale.

Strategic plans are the roadmap; teams the vehicles to get you to your destination.

Of course, anyone who’s ever owned a car knows it requires a constant level of maintenance to prevent breakdown.

An organization’s carefully crafted operating procedures are the user manual, benefits and perks the fuel to drive us forward, and competitive compensation the oil that ensures the gears (and the world) keep turning.

Throw in some biweekly one-to-ones with the boss—a quick trip to the mechanic, if you will—and that’s it, right? The vehicles are in peak working condition. You have everything needed for maximum performance … so why does it feel like you’re driving a clunker?

Teams are rarely homogeneous

See, here’s where the analogy breaks down. Your organization isn’t a machine. It’s a community. It’s built of personalities, ideas, experiences, emotions.

It’s built from people, not parts.

So why do we act like organizations can run on mechanical logic when the moving parts are human?

Humans as individuals, let alone en masse, are rarely homogenous at their core. They have diverse, multiplicitous, sometimes even conflicting needs. And those needs are always more than simple paychecks and lunch breaks.

If your people policies aren’t acknowledging that, you’re playing checkers when you should be playing chess.

Understanding how a community differs from a computer simulation means understanding what people actually need to thrive.

Of course, many of us do this in our day-to-day interactions (raise your hand if you know what makes your better half tick, what engages them, what infuriates them … anyone?) but weirdly, we often ignore all of that when designing workplace structures.

Which is wild, because keeping people happy is not rocket science.

A radical concept, 80 years in the making

This isn’t radical thinking either. Corporate America has been leaning on psychology to motivate and manage the workforce since at least the 1950s.

Douglas McGregor’s The Human Side of Enterprise, published in 1960, heavily influenced workplace design and leadership in that era. McGregor’s work was, in turn, based on Maslow’s A Theory of Human Motivation (1943) which presented us with a model for achieving, in essence, happiness and contentment.

If you’re not familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, your HR director may be. Your marketing director almost certainly is.

The basic premise of applying this model to the workplace? The most efficient, loyal, and productive employees are the ones whose work environment meets their core human needs—physiological well-being, stability and safety, a sense of belonging and connection, and esteem and purpose. 

Despite seismic social schisms, this model is as intuitive, important, and effective today as it was 80+ years ago. So why aren’t more organizations embracing it?

Humans are still human, so what changed?

Perhaps as HR policies matured through a century that saw universal suffrage, racial desegregation, exponentially increased immigration, gay rights etc. etc. the sheer scale of the human experience became too daunting and box-ticking exercises sidelined human-centric design.

Perhaps the realities of modern commerce demand more aggressive approaches to leadership, so compensation models and HR policies alike are structured around outputs rather than experience.

Perhaps passion has taken over, and we’re so focused on our products that we’ve overlooked our place. 

Whatever shifted, your people spend most of their waking hours working for you, so how your organization’s priorities shape their lived experience is critical.

If your workplace provides security, trust, respect, growth, and purpose—if your people go home happy, engaged, supported—they’re more likely to yes, stay, but also to go the extra mile: for one another, for you, for your customers, members, partners etc.

Alternatively, if they go home miserable, they’ll leave. Or worse, they’ll soft-quit. You’ll find yourself going through the costly process of “replacing that broken part” again (and again), putting the rest of your team under stress while they work harder to compensate.

Humans are and will always be human. They will always be influenced by the environment around them.

Put simply: good culture beats good strategy. Every. Damn. Time.

Ready to take a deeper look at your organizational culture? Reach out. We’re here to help.