How can a business create wins for all stakeholders?
To help your business create wins for all stakeholders, we asked business leaders and financial experts this question for their best tips. From investing in cultures that promote positive company culture to defining core values, there are several ways businesses can create wins for their stakeholders.
Here are 10 ways businesses can create wins for all of their stakeholders:
- Focus On Accessibility
- Let Leaders Identify And Fix Any Company Holes
- Invest In Cultures That Promote Positive Culture
- Give A Voice To Each Stakeholder
- College Tuition Reimbursement
- A Higher Purpose
- Don’t Love, Don’t Pay
- Don’t Put One Stakeholder Above Others
- Define Core Values
- Three-point System
Focus On Accessibility
The key thing is to make a product or service simple and accessible for all stakeholders. If the product or service isn’t easily accessible to employees with disabilities or vulnerable customers, then it’s hard for the business to create wins for all stakeholders. Focus on accessibility so that all can truly enjoy the product or service.
Adam Korbl, iFax
Let Leaders Identify And Fix Any Company Holes
One powerful way is for the key stakeholders to envision success in all areas that the company impacts (examples may include: employees, environment, social influence, etc.). The vision is the catalyst to create strong strategic pathways to move forward. Next, engage your front-line employees to poke holes in the strategies and brainstorm solutions to any holes they locate. Once that process is complete, leaders will more effectively engage the delegation and implementation process while honoring the hard-earned wisdom of their employees. A complete win-win that trickles down to the customer and other key areas of impact.
Laurel Elders, The Institute for Integrative Coach Training
Invest In Cultures That Promote Positive Culture
The way we live our lives every day determines how we lived our life and the legacy we leave. Fostering work environments where trust, cooperation, diversity, and innovation thrive is what we need as human beings and in our society more than ever today. Organizations can play a significant role in improving the way we work and behave by understanding and actively investing in cultures that promote a positive culture. These positive organizational ways of collaborating become pervasive in our everyday lives, bolstering our careers, the businesses we work for, and how we interact with one another overall. While supporting the economic health of these businesses, I’d like to think investing in healthy workplace culture also helps us become a better, more compassionate society.
Renee C. Campisi, Organizational Transformation Leader
Give A Voice To Each Stakeholder
Ensuring that the “voice” of each stakeholder and not just shareholders has a seat at the table guarantees that businesses will consciously evolve their decision making. What I mean by “voice” is to consider the impact of our actions and decisions on different stakeholders. Everything is interconnected, and separation is truly a delusion, so a holistic view of the ecosystem in which a business functions is key.
Yolande Grill, InfoSol Inc.
College Tuition Reimbursement
Businesses should make college tuition reimbursement available to all of their employees. Very few do, and most don’t offer it at all, even though they can deduct up to $5,250 off of their income tax each year. When businesses offer college tuition reimbursement, the employee gets smarter, the business gets employees who can contribute on a much higher level, and their community has businesses and citizens who can economically and intellectually contribute at an outstanding level. It’s a win, win, win!
Howard Stewart, AGM Container Controls
A Higher Purpose
A business can create win-win scenarios by having a well-articulated higher purpose. Yes, a company needs to generate revenue. If done via a long-term, higher-purpose perspective, decisions will be made looking out for all stakeholders’ best interests, for they are all part of that company’s ecosystem.
Randy Gibb, Colangelo College of Business at Grand Canyon University
Don’t Love, Don’t Pay
We’ve had more than 22,000 happy customers since 2010. We implemented a “don’t love, don’t pay” guarantee to create wins for all stakeholders. While this guarantee may be an obvious win for customers, it also creates internal wins by ensuring that our work is done fast and done right. And of course, when work is done right, the end beneficiary is our customer’s customers, who enjoy quality work. Think about a guarantee that creates wins for all stakeholders, and try it out.
Ben Walker, Transcription Outsourcing
Don’t Put One Stakeholder Above Others
If a business wants to ensure that all of their stakeholders prosper with the organization, they have to keep them in mind when making decisions. So many times, organizations will focus on only certain key stakeholders and leave out others. We see this all the time with large corporations focused on shareholders. They completely disregard their employees, customers, and vendors with this focus. In the end, the shareholders will prosper while everyone else will suffer. To avoid this, you have to make decisions that benefit everyone and keep that in mind. You don’t put one stakeholder above others as that will hurt certain groups in your organization. Your mindset has to be: “if everyone doesn’t win with these decisions, then it’s not a good one.”
Mark Smith, UAT
Define Core Values
Core values help define the actions, decisions, and behaviors of an organization. They can attract the right employees and the right clients. By defining a company’s core values, you can begin to create the right wins amongst the people attracted to the values. It’s hard to explain and much easier to realize with the experience of seeing firsthand how values can impact all stakeholders.
Brett Farmiloe, Markitors
Three-Point System
First is for leadership in the business to ask a continuing question: How many of our decisions are coming from wisdom and how many from ego or fear? And to grow awareness of what decisions that come from wisdom feel like. Second, to deeply-listen to all employees and create an environment where they feel comfortable expressing their own originality. Third, that the leaders in the business know when their decisions are from a need to be right and pull back from them. These three points create wins for all stakeholders.
Gregory Drambour, Sedona Retreats
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