This post inspired by a comment from John at HyTek Manufacturing in the Chicago suburbs who commented on our post The Most Important Tool.
What is the most important job in a company? In any organization?
What is absolutely the one thing that truly determines organizational success?
Is it Supervision? Operations? Accounting? Purchasing?
Each of these are core competencies without which a company can struggle and ultimately fail.
But what is the most important Job for the organization? Let me quote John:
“The strongest department or skill a company can have is the hiring department. Getting the right person for the job is the majority of the task. The most successful companies always hire the best people for the job. Ones that think and contribute, not just punch in and punch out thinking.”
I think John has this right. Having the right people is key for any organization. After all the organization is those people and their attitudes, knowledge and abilities as demonstrated by their performance.
Thanks John, for leading this conversation.
But I would expand it just a bit.
The most important job in a company is the selection of employees, suppliers, and customers.
A failure at any of these spells trouble in operations, production, and sales.
What do you think about this?
What is the most important job at your company?
Sam Johnson says:
My feeling is it is supervision at ALL levels. Good supervisors realize they are there to give those who work under them the tools and direction to carry out their jobs efficiently and effectively with little to no supervision. The tools are not necessarily the equipment but the education and whys and wherefores so they know why they are doing what they are doing and how it fits into the entire scheme of things. With that knowledge and the hard tools necessary the person should be able to perform his job properly. If he does no perform, the supervisor has not performed his job properly or has the right person in the wrong job. The supervisor must sit down the person and talk about it. This is not an adversarial conversation. It is a fact finding discussion to determine what is going wrong and how it can be corrected. There are many talented people who are not performing up to their abilities because they are in the wrong job, haven’t been provided with the tools, or just don’t know how their products or actions fit into the entire scheme of things. It’s the supervisors job to correct that.
speakingofprecision says:
Thanks for your thoughtful response Sam!