How can you run a business with the primary goal of great relationships rather than the bottom line? Watch the video or read the transcript below.
00:00 all right so we’re here live again with 00:01 the ultimate why my name is Randal 00:03 Weidenaar a culture change consultant and 00:05 we’re gonna discuss a little bit of a 00:07 contrast here people often ask me how do 00:10 you run a business when your ultimate 00:12 game or ultimate goal of the business is 00:15 is a relational one what of connecting 00:17 well with people that’s what we that’s 00:20 what the ultimate why motivation is and 00:22 if most people measure businesses purely 00:26 by financial measures obviously 00:27 financial measures are important it’s 00:30 not an either-or situation but we can 00:33 only have one primary point of 00:35 measurement only one primary direction 00:37 that we’re heading into either either 00:40 relationships are going to follow the 00:41 finance or the finance is going to 00:43 follow a relationship so let’s look and 00:45 see what this looks like when we have 00:48 differences in this set up here okay so 00:50 the ultimate why is going to lead first 00:54 of all is an intrinsic type of 00:56 motivation meaning it comes with from 00:58 within you so each individual and in the 01:00 organization is gonna be finding the 01:02 motivation from within themselves rather 01:03 than from somewhere outside with finance 01:07 as a motivation everyone is looking 01:09 outside of them for something to come in 01:11 to fill the fill up their void inside of 01:14 themselves so it’s sort of a consuming 01:16 and never-ending thing if you can find 01:18 it within yourself then that resource is 01:20 internal to you and the resource here 01:23 for motivation and for satisfaction is 01:25 external to you 01:27 so here employees in general according 01:31 to surveys when you have this 01:32 relationship focused are more engaged 01:34 because you’re focused on the 01:35 relationship and conversely when you’re 01:38 focused on finances the ultimate one 01:40 you’re not as engaged it’s usually about 01:43 a 77030 mix and so you’d have 70% 01:47 engaged here and 70% not engaged on this 01:49 side those are general tendencies not a 01:52 rule across the board but that’s the way 01:54 numbers generally tend to stand up when 01:56 we do surveys and studies of these 01:58 things so how are we approaching what I 02:03 like to call the community the people 02:04 that you’re serving here in this way 02:07 you’re trying to create value because 02:09 that’s a relational proposition and here 02:12 you’re wondering are my 02:13 get paid you’re trying to ultimately 02:15 extract money from the people that 02:17 you’re serving that’s your goal that’s 02:19 your primary goal people you know some 02:21 of these organizations that’ll like 02:22 those hobbies there’s gonna be some nice 02:23 people down there doing nice things but 02:25 ultimately the bottom line is how much 02:27 can I extract from the people that I’m 02:30 serving and we call them consumers and 02:33 over here we would call them the 02:34 community that you’re serving so just a 02:37 slight difference there and how you 02:38 approach the people that you’re working 02:41 with and the community of your consumers 02:43 your clients the people you’re serving 02:45 and here on this side this is kind of 02:47 the ethical column so I don’t see any 02:50 generally ethical problems that that 02:52 come about when you have a relational 02:53 focus because you’re having the other’s 02:56 best in mind always fundamentally that’s 02:59 a motivation that will lead towards good 03:01 ethical outcomes obviously there can be 03:05 problems and centered organizations that 03:06 have that nothing’s going to require or 03:08 create a perfection utopia but down here 03:12 if our primary motivation is financial I 03:15 could compromise quality in order to 03:17 achieve a financial end I could somehow 03:21 compromise integrity in order to achieve 03:24 a financial end because finances my 03:26 first integrity is not my first value 03:28 here relational focus encompasses 03:33 integrity as a primary value and then 03:36 obviously there’s going to be relational 03:37 issues you will stop over people in 03:39 order to get to the goal of Finance so 03:43 here this is how the the consumers feel 03:46 or the community might my language tends 03:50 to feel so with the ultimate why 03:52 according to Gallup when you have 03:53 engaged employees and a relationship 03:56 focus you’re gonna have a 23% greater 03:58 share of the wallet in in your marketing 04:02 terms and here you’re going to be 23% 04:05 less actually than then a competitive 04:07 firm with a relational focus so and 04:09 they’re gonna sort of a commodity focus 04:12 like the your community’s gonna treat 04:14 you like a commodity and you’re gonna 04:16 feel treated like a commodity likewise 04:18 so how do the three main groups in these 04:23 organizations stack up employees 04:27 company and consumers it’s going to be a 04:29 win-win-win relationship and generally 04:31 in in this it’s going to be a lose-lose 04:33 even if you have finances as a primary 04:36 goal that’s what you’re going to be 04:38 serving and finances might win in the 04:40 end but the human beings involved are 04:43 not the winners in this overall outcome 04:46 because that’s not your focus that’s not 04:47 your goal when your goal is not to 04:49 create a positive outcome relationally 04:52 for human beings why should you be 04:55 shocked other than things not working 04:57 out well for human beings involved in 04:59 your in your organization it’s not a 05:01 shocker 05:01 okay so ultimate why as a primary goal 05:04 let’s let’s give some examples now of 05:06 different corporate organizations so for 05:10 the ultimate why let’s look at a plant 05:13 that caterpillar set up that focused on 05:16 employee engagements Ingle and this 05:20 plant according to the statistics from a 05:21 Sherm article that I recently read had 05:24 an eight million dollar increase in 05:26 overall profits just one plant so the 05:31 statistics are and the irony is is like 05:33 if I focus on this I can actually 05:36 achieve these outcomes of good finances 05:39 as well because actually it’s creating 05:42 value for everyone and and finance 05:44 should be just a reflection of creating 05:46 value for human beings because that’s 05:49 really what money is money is not 05:50 intrinsically worth something we give it 05:53 value okay so let’s look down here 05:57 what’s a good example 05:59 Enron was a good example of this you 06:02 know they they feign to have this they 06:04 had values statements and mission 06:07 statements on the wall but their culture 06:09 was really focused on extracting as much 06:11 money as possible and that’s the vibe 06:13 that that most of the employees got from 06:15 the higher-ups and so you know all of 06:18 this came to pass in terms of how people 06:20 felt and how things panned out and 06:22 ultimately they’re no longer in business 06:24 because of their ethics violations of 06:27 the way people felt treated by them 06:30 ultimately wasn’t a relationally focused 06:32 organization and these things panned out 06:36 so those that’s a brief overview what 06:38 it’s like to have a company 06:39 that is focused primarily what is the 06:42 primary focus that one focus that you 06:44 have it’s not that when you focus on the 06:46 Y the ultimate why other things that are 06:49 good don’t ensue they do it’s just that 06:53 when we make this our primary focus we 06:55 lose out on many things that we set out 06:59 for as human beings to live life for why 07:03 are we living life the ultimate why says 07:05 we’re living we’re a living life for 07:06 ourselves the teams we work for and the 07:09 communities we work for there’s 07:11 relational focuses are the primary thing 07:13 the primary motivator for every human 07:15 being in every organization and so 07:17 thanks subscribe and like our channel if 07:20 you’d like to follow us every week and 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