From our previous articles, you took action and burned the ships as you pursue a culture of purposeful recognition withing your workforce of the individual and valuing the individual.
Now it’s time to pull everyone together to move forward toward a common goal.
Focus on the External
With a “Burn the Ships” commitment lived out through employee-centric management, trust within your organization builds rapidly. Your people will engage and take ownership of their work, and the leadership’s task is to align them in the right direction.
Alignment is about the whole organization working toward a common goal. This goal is more significant than any KPI. KPIs are internal performance metrics for projects, efficiency, and cost reduction. A plan that will unite your workforce is something external to the organization. It is customer satisfaction and loyalty that eliminate the threats of competition. A customer-centric organization will anticipate needs, provide ideas and solutions and inspire its workforce to make the best decisions for the customer and, therefore, the company.
Everyone has the same goal in a customer-centric organization: the best possible customer experience. With everyone on the same side working for the best possible outcome for the customer, silos break down and fortified by the culture’s intolerance of poor behavior, so do the mini-empires of power. Decisions revolve around what is most important to the customer, how to improve the customer experience, and how to make products easier to use and provide more benefit. When everyone acts as a customer advocate, it fosters collaboration between departments and a one-team approach.
The customer-centric mindset creates a more intimate relationship and greater trust with your company. Since everyone’s goal is customer satisfaction, your company’s success is internalized and owned as the individual’s success. Each employee recognizes what they contributed to the “win” with a customer. Individual ownership and recognition of their contribution to the greater achievement of the organization create belonging, recognition of personal value, and pride.
Just as companies with employee-centric management celebrate strong employee loyalty and high retention rates, companies with a customer-centric culture reap the benefits of loyal, long-term customers.
Embrace a Higher Purpose
Companies are called to a higher standard than ever before. They contribute goods and services, provide jobs to the community, and pay taxes, but society expects them to be good corporate citizens. Your up-and-coming workforce does too. Gen-Zers search out companies that sponsor and participate in bettering the world.
Consider what social issue, charity, or local initiative fits your business. For example, a maker of a critical component in defibrillators looked at needs in their community. One of them provided AEDs, the emergency defibrillators you see in public locations such as churches, shopping malls, and restaurants, to specific areas around their community. It created the sense among the employees that they personally provided lifesaving equipment to their community that might even save a friend or family member someday.
A higher purpose beyond the bottom line ALWAYS unites your organization. Externally it drives a brand image that attracts talent to your workforce who will thrive in your culture, promotes goodwill to your customers, and ties the company to the community. Even more, it shows that your company is about people, not just profits.
And besides all of that, leading a company like this is great fun and deeply rewarding on every level imaginable. Why do it any other way?
Let us help you navigate one of the most significant challenges for you and the most remarkable transformation of your company. Let’s talk!