So… clients or employees?  Which comes first?  This has been a source of some debate in my company for a little while and it has gotten me thinking… is one more important than the other?  Should one come ahead of the other?  Is this just another version of the age old chicken and egg story?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Let me first give you some context for the discussion we’re having around this.  We’re a young company and we’ve just concluded an exercise to define our core values and guiding principles. [I will write a post on this one soon].  We took a very inclusive and consultative approach to defining them… starting with a small group of senior types brainstorming values that mean something to us (it was basically a list of ‘words’ we like)… Integrity, Excellence, Innovative, Creativity, Trust, … you can probably guess many of the others.  Like I said… words we like!  Who doesn’t like those?

One of the ‘values’ raised wasn’t very well-defined but had, largely, to do with the importance of our company ‘being good’ to employees.  The value we landed on was employee-centric.  On its own, it doesn’t have much meaning but the point was to articulate that it was important that the company be ’employee centric’ by caring about employees and the things they care about — an inspiring working atmosphere, learning and professional development, as well as their personal goals, ‘hierarchy’ of needs, wellness, well-being, and so on.  As a group, we were ok with something as nebulous as ’employee-centric’ because we knew what it was supposed to mean and believed it was important.  We thought it was self-evident although not well-defined.

The next step was to take these ‘words’ (I had a tough time calling them values at that point) to the proverbial street – that is, to the staff across the company.  Each person had the opportunity to provide input by essentially voting for the words (values) they liked best (and even adding new ones if they felt something was missing).  And the result was the following:

We felt pretty good about our new ‘value cloud’.  The larger the word, the more votes it had received.

I know I know… so where’s the debate?  It’s coming up… now.

The next step was to take the value cloud and some draft wording around guiding principles to the partners for discussion, approval, rejection, or modification.  A discussion ensued which probably shouldn’t surprise anyone…

“Why do we not aspire to be as client centric as we are employee centric?”

Great question.  But the only answer myself and a couple others could muster was [something like this]… “Without employees who are engaged, enthusiastic, passionate, creative, entrepreneurial, innovative, and incredibly talented, we do not have a company.  If we take care of our people, they will take care of our clients.”  Therefore, employees come first.  [Sounds good, right?]

There was some hesitation on the other side of the table… a little discomfort with where this was going.  And the conversation started to go the other way… “Without clients who are buying our services and thus creating the revenues that allow us to operate, there is no company.”  Same logic, used from the other side.

Hmmm… stalemate?  This conversation went on for a few weeks…

What do you think?  Is it possible to say one is more important than another?  Is it just chicken vs. egg and, therefore, subject to opinion?  Or is one a more foundational aspect of a company and its success than the other?  Please weigh in.