Inviting Profitable Change - How to Empower People To Implement Profitable Change

Introduction:

Now that we have traveled the journey of the past few articles where we spoke about what is an Organizational Assessment (OA), its importance, its focus, who are the people that make up your organization, and how we get those people to trust us and give us their loyalty. We will shift gears to the part that most entrepreneurs, founders, and business owners REALLY want to know - how does all this make me money at the end of the day? How does this make my business profitable? How does this all affect the long-term, long-lasting success of the business that I am working so hard to build? 

Thought you’d never ask! 

These next few articles will focus exactly on this topic. How does this all “Cha-Ching” at the end of the day? 

Let’s begin with the assumption that you’ve had an OA done and suggestions were made. The next step would be to determine which suggestions are the most important ones to focus on immediately. More often than not, they will need to include certain people from your organization to “buy in” and help out with the changes that need to be made.

When we say “buy-in” we are saying that they need to see the importance of the change, significance of the change, and will need to take ownership of their parts that will help implement those changes.

How do we get that buy-in? That’s the focus of this article. 

Buy-in = Ownership

As we just explained in the introduction, “buy-in” is when the necessary stakeholders get the importance and invite the changes that are suggested to be made. This can be tricky. Sometimes, we will need the buy-in of several people.

Let’s take for example a certain product change. Let’s say we are selling books.

We need the editor, the publisher, the printer, the distributor, and perhaps even the designer to all want and accept the changes that need to be made. Perhaps we will be dealing with vendors, PR agents, magazine editors, and more. What will get all these people aligned with your desire for this necessary change? Do they get it? Do they see its importance? Do they invite it, accept it, or be willing to take part in the necessary changes?

Why is it so important that these stakeholders “buy” into the change?

When they’ve bought in, they assume responsibility for the success of the change that needs to be implemented. If they do not buy in - contentions, tensions, and potential conflict will arise. Oftentimes, people do not “buy-in” and are not willing to take ownership of their portion of the change because of several reasons.

1. They do not understand the need for the change

2. The change comes too fast without their involvement in the discovery process that happened behind the scenes in order to get to the conclusion that these changes ought to be made
3. No one likes to be told what to do
4. Do the changes align with their needs, wants, desires, goals, vision, mission, and core values? Is it all about you or does it include them (remember the last article talking about ego?). 

Once we’ve understood the importance of buy-in, and once we’ve assessed these four criteria - the question is how do we get this buy-in without any contentions and with the involvement of all the necessary stakeholders involved? 

That’s what we’ll be discussing next.

Feedback

We begin by reaching out to the people around us and asking them for feedback. Asking them for their valued input, opinions, and thoughts on what is going on and whether or not they are satisfied with how things are going.

Inviting this type of feedback is very important for several reasons. 

1. People like to be valued and have their voices heard
2. People like to be involved with the evolution of the product, service, and overall organization
3. People want to feel a part of something greater, more meaningful, and more fulfilling
4. If they are aligned with your mission and vision, then they feel that they were part of the process that resulted in the overall success of the entire organization - them included! 

The only issue with asking for feedback is that not always will it be what we want to hear, like to hear, or are prepared to hear. Sometimes, feedback will sting, hurt, and be borderline offensive - or at least we may think so. People giving this type of feedback will consider it “constructive” - in truth, not all feedback is constructive. We will now discuss what this type of feedback is actually called…

Criticism

Criticism is the feedback that comes in the form of a negative response to some degree. We’d like to consider overall feedback positive and negative feedback criticism.

As mentioned earlier, not all criticism is constructive, it will take a whole other article (next one) to delve deeper into how to respond and discern proper criticism. However, for the sake of this article, we will consider that within each criticism there will be a hint of truth hidden in it, and when we learn how to dig deeper and find that golden nugget - we can go a very long way in the growth of our organization.

Let me just tell you, from first-hand experience, and as someone that couldn’t handle much criticism - it was super hard to learn how to deal with it and how to use it to my advantage. Until this very day, it still stings and hurts like hell - but, I’ve come to learn how to overcome the pain, embrace the criticism, and channel it in a positive direction.

How did I manage to do this?

By learning and getting guidance from incredible mentors…

Mentorship and Guidance

The importance of mentorship and guidance in this particular situation is that we all need an objective voice that is non-judgmental. Someone that has worked on their skills of empathy to pay attention to us, the people involved, and the overall benefit of the business.

The mentor is able to see the bigger picture and comes with no emotion involved. They are in the best position to run through the feedback, and the criticism - whether good, bad, constructive, or destructive. They can help us look through each element with a lens that isn’t tainted by emotion, prejudice, stereotype, or other preconceived notions.

We need mentors because they are removed from the actual situation and that is why they are able to come with that type of lens. This outside person doesn’t sway to either direction and their entire focus is to make sure that there will be a win-win-win situation that will ultimately benefit everyone and end up benefiting the organization as a whole. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, when we ask for feedback from the people that make up our organization, whether they be our internal staff or our vendors, collaborators, and even clients. We are able to better understand how others perceive our business and the products and services that we are providing. At the end of the day, our business’s long-term, long-lasting profitability will all depend on how much value we provide to all the people involved in our business and how much they find our business profound, significant, fulfilling, and meaningful - in other words, people will feel good doing business with you.

If we are able to properly discern, with some outside help and guidance, the different types of feedback that we receive, then focus on the input of the people we serve and serve with, that will help our business with the growth that will lead to the long term, long-lasting (sustainable) and profitable business that we’re talking about.

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Picture what it would look like if your business was the “talk of the town”, people lining around the corner to do business with you, and your business is so profitable while still making a significant and profound impact - what would that look like to you? 

Would love to hear your input. 

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To learn more about Organizational Assessments, to have one done on your organization, or to further discuss partnership in creating that profound, significant, long-lasting profitable business, please reach out to [email protected]

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Yermi Kurkus - is the co-founder of the Yermi Kurkus Consulting Group. With a family background in Entrepreneurship, a heart for community and philanthropy, and his love for psychology, Yermi dedicated his life to helping businesses thrive. Earned an MA in Organizational and Industrial Psychology and is in the process of attaining his Doctorate in that same field. Today, Yermi creatively partners with businesses to help them increase their value, productivity, and profit by focusing on their operations and talent. The results of this help facilitate the buying or selling of businesses as well as assist in the overall well-being of the workplace and workforce.

To learn more about Yermi Kurkus feel free to follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. Or you can book your first 30-minute FREE consultation here.