Create a Stakeholder Orientation
Does Anyone Else Care About Your Business’s Success?
A business touches a lot of people. Stakeholders are customers, employees, suppliers, community, the environment, and investors. Having to choose among them is a false choice. Layoffs vs. profits. Service cuts vs. customers care. Squeezing suppliers vs. parts shortage. These are short-term tactics that lose the trust, goodwill and loyalty which sustains a business over the long term and through difficult times.
Business needs to act in ways that all stakeholders can win. They can. Conscious companies are more profitable than conventional capitalists when people and the planet come before profit.
The Business Roundtable is the largest group of public corporations in America. In 2019, these CEOs turned over a fifty-year maxim by declaring that the purpose of a corporation is not to first serve the stockholder. The said that the purpose of the corporation is to serve all stakeholders. We’ve been hearing about the triple bottom line – People, Planet, and then Profits. This was American businesses’ bold declaration.
We partner with you on journey to higher purpose by:
Find stakeholders’ needs
Don’t assume that you already know stakeholder needs and how well you meet them. We design “listening tours” that are conducted by your own people. By assembling a diagonal slice of various departments and levels of the business, your people get out of their silos and into the real world of the customer. Designed correctly as “curiosity and listening,” these meetings increase the connection with your stakeholders. Employees bring back stories and examples of stakeholders’ needs.
Conduct independent research
When a company needs a third-party researcher, we design various fact-finding methods. We design 360 surveys to learn the deep seated needs of your employees or customers. These self-norming surveys answer two questions – What do the stakeholders consider most important? How well do we meet these needs?
Design a Stakeholder Map
The designers of the rotary engine never involved mechanics when they did the design. Changing the spark plugs required pulling the entire engine out of the car. They forgot an important stakeholder.
We work together to determine which stakeholders should be involved. Key decisions. Strategy. New product design. Release. Technology implementation. Start up. We make sure that all key decisions and processes are not thwarted by outdated silos and narrow thinking.
What Our Clients Are Saying
““The training gave our people the skills to be leaders, and helped us identify the skills we need in managers. Those who were accountable for the sales performance of their people were now responsible for providing the skills needed to do the job.
This also provided great flexibility and cost-savings. Supervisors can teach new employees immediately. Breaking the workshops into in shorter segments helped to meet scheduling demands. There were no travel costs to send trainers to participants, or participants to trainers.
The more they taught the course, the more supervisors mastered the skills. It was amazing to see supervisors become the go-to coach to help employees overcome objections or learn how to sell in new programs or products.”
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