In Jurassic World, released in 2015, the CEO of a new Dinosaur theme park, Simon Masrani, visits his park early in the movie to see how things are going. He asks his operations chief, Claire, for an update on his investment, and she says things are good with profits up over 2% since last year. Simon responds by saying, I want to know if the guests are happy and if the dinosaurs are enjoying life. Claire responds by saying there’s no current method for measuring the dinosaur’s emotional experience, but park satisfaction is consistently in the upper 90s. Simon looks visibly annoyed, while Claire is flustered by his question, which can’t be answered by the numbers she prepared.

Simon is concerned about his assets, which in this case happen to be dinosaurs that cost tens of millions of dollars to create. What’s remarkable is that he’s concerned with their general well-being, not the profit he’s making.

This is where I think the lesson comes in for modern leaders. A leader’s most important asset is their people. Yet, how often do you think about your employee’s life? Are they happy? Are they enjoying life?

This stuff is hard to measure, and as the movie clip shows, you can’t easily correlate happiness with numbers. You can, however, get a pulse on your employees’ levels of happiness and enjoyment. In fact, it’s quite easy to learn from your employees; they will share a lot of information if you’re willing to listen. The problem most leaders face is that they fail to prioritize conversations with their employees. No agenda. Just talking, listening, and learning from your employees’ perspectives on life and the work they do every day.

A lot of people push back, saying they’re too busy moving things forward to spend time talking to people about things in their lives that may seem important. If they’re willing to talk to you about it, then it’s important to them. You can't afford to be too busy for that.

One of the busier jobs in the world is the President of the United States. Not only are they incredibly busy, but they’re also incredibly important. It’s also true that the President is insulated from most everyday, mundane tasks that most Americans can relate to. In fact, President Garfield said, “The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.” He was right. When you hold a position of power, no matter the size of the role, you lose the ability to relate to everyday people.

No one reading this is nearly as important as Lincoln was during the Civil War. He was determined to hold the Union together. He wanted to preserve the nation his forefathers had created and to which he was now entrusted. Despite all the stress, all the meetings, all the advisors, and all the decisions he had to make, Lincoln never forgot to prioritize his most important task: talking to the people he was leading. He instinctively knew what Garfield would say decades later to be true.

Lincoln was adamantly opposed to restricting the public’s access to him. He even had a practice he called public opinion baths, where he would spend as much time as needed listening to people’s concerns. Here’s what Lincoln had to say when defending his practice of conducting public opinion baths:

“The office of the President is essentially a civil one, and the affair is very different. For myself, I feel, though the tax on my time is heavy, no hours of my day are better employed than those which thus bring me again within the direct contact and atmosphere of our whole people…Many of the matters brought to my notice are utterly frivolous, but others are of more or less importance, and all serve to renew in me a clearer and more vivid image of that great popular assemblage, out of which I sprang, and to which at the end of two years I must return. I tell you, Major, that I call these receptions my public-opinion baths; for I have but little time to read the papers and gather public opinion that way, and though they may not be pleasant in all their particulars, the effect as a whole is renovating and invigorating to my perceptions of responsibility and duty.” (Mr. Lincoln at Washington).

Lincoln saw these conversations as an important part of his duty as President. He knew he couldn’t lead people whom he didn’t understand. How can you make decisions on behalf of a group of people you don’t understand? Leaders make decisions on behalf of their people all the time. It’s an abdication of responsibility to make these decisions in a vacuum. You don’t need to gather consensus, but you do need to understand the impact of your decisions on the people you’re leading.

If you haven’t designated time in your week to talk to your people, you can’t expect to know how they feel. If you don’t know how they feel, how can you possibly help them? No leader’s too busy to spend time with their people. The most important leader in the world during the Civil War took time out of his day to routinely talk to the people of the country he was leading. I can’t imagine a situation where time is more valuable than it was for Mr. Lincoln during his time in the White House. He understood how important the simple task of talking to people was. He learned more about the nation’s feelings on the war than he could have from dozens of briefings.

The insights you gather from talking to your people will be more valuable than a hundred engagement surveys could ever be.

So, ask yourself, do you know if your people are happy?

Until next time,

Rick