44 WESTERN PALLET
Triple Bottom Line Part Two – Production vs. People
Picture this: It’s Wednesday afternoon. Tom, my partner, busts through the door.
I ignored the panic on his face and greeted him warmly. “Hey! What’s up?”
“Take a look at this,” he said abruptly, commandeering my laptop.
After a couple of clicks, he motioned to the screen, which displayed one of the production dashboards we had just spun up as part of our automation project.
Yikes! That’s a lot of red.
“Tell me what we’re looking at here,” I said, keeping my poker face.
“This is the production dashboard for the robotic cells on the floor. You know…” He was obviously annoyed at having to explain.
“Right. Of course,” I said, nonchalantly.
“They’re not producing!” he said. “We’re going to have to do something with those teams. We’ll have to find new people who can hit the numbers.”
Wait! Huh?!
I was confused at how quickly he’d gotten to that conclusion. At the same time, I was having flashbacks to the times I’d busted into Dad’s office planning to “clean house” in some department because of some number on some report.
I got up and, putting my hand on his shoulder, said, “Look, if there’s one thing my old man taught me, it’s that we always put people first.”
I waited. As his tension eased a bit, I continued.
“I’m super pumped about this automation, the dashboards, the AI… all of it. And I know it’s going to help us scale the business the way we’re envisioning.”
I hesitated.
“But?” he asked.
“But nothing,” I continued. “I just think we need to start by being curious: let the dashboards do what they’re meant to do and show us the red—the areas that need improvement. From there, assuming the machinery is performing as it should, and the data streams are flowing correctly, let’s follow the trail and figure out how to help people succeed.”
I paused again to let it sink in and then finished.
“As much money as we’ve spent on all of this, our people are still our greatest asset. And as leaders, we lead people. AI, dashboards, robots, and software are just tools to help us do it all more efficiently.”
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The most successful leaders in modern business operate with a Triple Bottom Line mentality: People, Purpose, and Profit.
Effectively operating with this type of mindset means properly balancing all three—in tension with one another. It’s a simple three-legged system. If one leg is too short (underemphasized) or breaks altogether (ignored entirely), the whole thing crashes to the floor.
An exaggerated focus on production numbers leads to the same result. And in a world filled with AI, robotics, software, and other automation, it’s easy to get caught up in “doing more with less.” But as smart as that sounds, focusing on it without holding the value of people in tension is one of the quickest ways for a values-driven leader to lose their way.
One of the greatest 20th-century management theorists and the father of what we know today as “Lean Manufacturing,” once said:
“Focus on people; you get productivity automatically.” —W. Edwards Deming
Food for Thought:
As leaders, we don’t lead organizations. We lead people. Ultimately, as leadership expert John C. Maxwell said, “An organization cannot increase its productivity—but people can!”
A Triple Bottom Line mentality redefines results.
So—what’s your bottom line?