In It Together

Nothing significant gets accomplished in isolation.

Prometheus creating man in the presence of Athena by Jean-Simon Berthélemy, 1802 and by Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse, 1826 (public domain - Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5)

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” — Abraham Lincoln, 1858

I recall a scene in the mid-1990s just after leaving Boston University: David Letterman brought The Late Show to BU, and picked out a student to become Big Man on Campus.

He randomly chose Michael Hirsch from the Freshman Record (a literal facebook of enrolled students), whose interests were listed as “Business and People.”

Dave had a field day with that, remarking,

“That’s a one-two punch. I mean, think about this: if you’re interested in business but not in people, well then you’re screwed.”

And yet, how many times have you encountered a situation, either as an employee or as a customer, where things don’t feel people-centric?

We have to make a big deal out of human-centered efforts, because they tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

In our lus…