You can always tell what’s important to people by simply looking at what they spend time doing. The things and activities we don’t like we tend not to pay attention to and don’t spend much time on. Right? So then why do business leaders say people are their greatest resource in achieving and maintaining a competitive edge and yet spend the so little time investing in themselves and their employees?

Being polite most of the time, I can tell you it doesn’t win me any points with executives when I tell them I don’t believe them. But I’m here to say, the emperor has no clothes on. Ask yourself, over the last 10 days where have you spent your time? How much is it on cash flow, customer acquisition and retention, improving your supply chain? I’ll be you know exactly what your sales were for the last three months but do you also put the same level of meticulous effort on managing and developing people? 

As a coach and former HR executive I’ve heard a lot of reasons why managers don’t spend time on managing talent. Here are 4 common excuses that keep managers from investing in people.

1)    Pulled myself up by the bootstrap mentality. No one helped me. Truth is no one makes it alone. Even when we can’t see them there’s always someone helping us along. There’s someone giving us a word of advice, opening a door on an opportunity, or sheltering us from our mistakes. 

2)    It’s an employer’s market. We can pick and choose from the best. Your philosophy says that the hidden cost of time and money means nothing to you or your bottom line. Do you feel the same way about the time value of money? If not, what’s the difference?  

3)    It costs too much or takes too long to develop people. Peter Drucker said it best, “A 5% increase in productivity would double the operating profits for most companies.” Tell me you don’t what to double your operating profits in today’s economy.

4)     “The boss doesn’t care why should I?” This is absolutely true for many people. It speaks to our feeling of self-worth and how we get clues on what’s important. The flip side is “if you don’t care about me why should I care about what’s important to you?”

The best companies are the best because they know managing talent is as important as managing cash flow. Everyone else believes there are short cuts to success and repeatedly spend time trying to find them.  I can tell you lying to employees isn’t one of them. So if developing and managing employees isn’t important admit it to yourself. Your employees already know it.