I have heard it so many times: In business, everyone is replaceable. This mentality is untrue and damaging to teams and working environments. It leads to dishonoring and disrespecting people, and enables a lack of empathy, understanding and tolerance for others.

Let me explain with a story. I spent my teen years in a small town called Pinckney, Michigan. At the time, this town was relatively small but had 2 gas stations. At one of these stations there worked a man named Ernie. Ernie had a mental handicap, which meant he talked and thought slower than most others. He lived downtown and rode to work on a lavishly decorated bicycle covered in pinwheels and colorful streamers that glistened in the wind. When I first met Ernie as a kid, I did not know what to think about him. I guess I thought he was a little creepy because he was obviously different from me. He was much older than me, but acted much younger. He spoke strange, moved in a strange way, and even smiled strangely.

Ernie never had a car, yet his job was to fill other people’s cars with gas, and he seemed to love his job. He always greeted people with a smile and such welcoming eyes. He wanted to make every child waiting in the car happy and always had a sucker to give. Ernie was the most kind, most thoughtful, most gentle, and most socially aware person I have ever met. Even if I was unsure of Ernie the first time we met, I really appreciated him within no time, as did most of the town.

Now, was Ernie replaceable? Well, if you only consider that Ernie pumped gas, and you consider that most people today pump their own gas, then absolutely. From a pure ability for the business to continue to make revenue, Ernie was not only replaceable, but easily eliminated.

On the other hand, Ernie’s style, flare, and kindness were unique to Ernie and unique to the business in the form of the customer experience and the customers’ relationship to that business and to that community. Ernie opened people’s minds because he was different. Ernie set an example that made everyone want to be a better person. Families went to that gas station just to have Ernie fill their tank with gas. Basically, Ernie mattered, but if that gas station owner believed that everyone is replaceable, he would have missed that value. Would it have mattered in terms of dollars and cents to the business? I think it would have been impossible to measure. But did it matter in terms of how it impacted the community, the community spirit, the open mindedness and generosity of the community, and the culture of the community?

A few years ago, Ernie died. You can see what people said about him here. The comments strongly suggest that Ernie, the man pumping gas, had a huge impact on the local people and culture. I know he had a huge impact on my personal view of people with a mental handicap and I will never forget him.

Today, companies are looking for a solution to many problems. How do we create an open and inclusive corporate culture? How do we project a corporate persona of being a part of the community, giving back and being sustainable? How do we prevent unethical and unsustainable behavior inside our companies? How do we nurture and capture the innovative spirit of our employees? The solution so far has been to dig down into the data, make new rules and regulations and track everything in big spreadsheets with strict project plans.

I think this route is missing the point. It is like using a hammer that has worked so well to solve other problems to decorate a birthday cake. Maybe there is another perspective, one that can help us to rethink the problem and maybe lead to a solution. What if we start with the realization that all businesses, 100% of them, are of People, founded by People, and are for People? If we consider this perspective as our starting point, does the idea that all people are replaceable make sense?

Ernie was not replaced and can never be replaced. Ernie is gone, but his impact remains in the people he interacted with. Managers who treat employees like a tool and employees who treat a company as a paycheck are neglecting the “people” part of business. Every working environment is a community with a culture. That culture extends beyond the work in an exchange with the families and they impact one another, they are interdependent and interrelated. The idea that people are replaceable does not honor the truth of being human nor the truth that all businesses are a part of a very human community.

The belief that people are replaceable is very close to saying people don’t matter. The belief “professionalism” requires complete emotional separation of work and life is asking people to stop being human. If we want to solve the ethics problems in companies, if we want to have more open minded employees who give back and consider themselves as part of our corporate cultures and global communities, then we first need to rethink our management theories. If people don’t matter, then individual’s actions don’t matter. And if individuals believe that their actions don’t matter, if managers and employees don’t see themselves as part of a shared community, then why be ethical, why be empathetic, why care about the company or its goals?

It would be very helpful to start with a belief that people matter and that everyone makes a difference. From this place, we can develop beliefs that challenge us to find ways to embrace and accept everyone’s humanity, including individual beliefs, differences and vulnerabilities.

These changes will require a huge paradigm shift for many companies. Since the assembly line of Henry Ford, companies built processes and systems to make “labor” replaceable. Commonization and systematization assured no one person could become too important, therefore allowing companies to both control wages and continue onward in case someone left the company. But in today’s world, where systemization and standardization are everywhere, creativity and ingenuity are more and more critical to create business growth and value. We have taken the “easily replaceable components” too far into our thinking. We need to look back far beyond Henry Ford and to ancient stories like that of the Trojan War. It was individuals, Achilles and Odysseus who broke out of the standard ways to defeat their enemies. For example, when Achilles ideas and ways were removed from consideration, the army went from winning to losing. It is this Greek epic that reminds us of the value of individual’s beliefs, thoughts, and ideas towards the success of the endeavor, but only when included. The data science at the time of the Trojan War (signs from the gods) were no match for the power gained by including dissimilar individuals.

Does this mean I am against data, processes, and systems? Absolutely not! As an engineer, I love data, processes, and systems, but I also recognize their limitations. And a truly “human” company that is open and inclusive would even have a place for data, systems, and processes amongst all the other human beliefs that make up what we can celebrate as a profitable venture.