Humantech CEO and Founder Franz Schneider of Oxford delivered a speech at a TEDx event located at Saginaw Valley State University recently.

He discussed the key to what makes organizations achieve great things — people. Companies understand machines and go to great lengths to make sure machines are happy and productive. When it comes to people, most companies guess.

Since 1979, Schneider has spent his career implementing initiatives to improve the effectiveness of people at Fortune 500 companies around the globe. What leverages business to succeed verses what drives them to fail was the subject of his presentation.

Technology has changed the world. It’s enabled us to do and achieve unimaginable things, he said. “We made tools to reach places we could never go; we took a peek at Pluto; we’ve seen the depths of the ocean; we fathomed a human heart that works; and we’ve come up with chocolate ice cream,” Schneider said. But, the most beneficial piece of technology, he explained, “is the one that can take a mundane pile of bricks and turn it into a thriving enterprise.” That piece of technology is the human being, he said.