How do we make money?

BY DR AKIN OGUNBIYI

Obviously, people invest in businesses to make money. Nowadays, there is even a tilt towards high yield but quick returns even in the capital market.

All over the world, employers have designed different ways not only to shore-up business fortunes but also guarantee sustainable streams of inflow. In Nigeria, for instance, different strategies and processes have been designed to “push” employees to give their best to ensure regular flow of money. KPI-backed targets are given and annual appraisals are conducted.

Some companies recently introduced the Balance Sheet Model whereby employees are assessed on a daily basis. Each employee must prove that he is adding value by way of inflow, on a daily basis.

However, strategies have often times failed. Let us examine the facts, we describe contributions of individual employees as either “accountables” or “countables”. Albert Einstein, the world famous physicist who developed the theory of relativity, spoke against the “countables” or the assessment of values by numbers. He said “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted”.

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic and lover of money-spinning businesses, said he ventured into the airline business to provide “aircraft with entertainment, comfortable seats and smiling cabin crew”. He ensured seamless cash flow and sustainable profitability by employing “people who do not criticize. People who are good with people and people who look for the best in people”.

We are trying various dynamics of business models to make money. Strategists, notwithstanding the fact that strategies sometimes fail, are still discussing, designing, challenging themselves and improving on the various plans and processes. However, we have discovered that cultural transformation through using “culture capital” will deliver personal accountability. Personal accountability in the workplace will promote internal cohesion. We will then have highly engaged employees that will deliver high value activities and with supporting activities, grow revenue.

Positive fallouts are: coherent regular experience around the things customers desire, utilization of function factors like networking and partnership, uniqueness and differentiation that cannot be copied, better and cheaper access to technology, new channels, creative retail experience, high-end versions of products and services, high performance by departments and stores, affordable prices, exceptional customer service, lifetime brand experience, regular and consistent cash flow as well as great progress from clear objectives.

If an organisation “is a people-first one and also purpose-driven”, the achievement of money goals cannot be guaranteed except with a fully engaged workforce.

Smart people and best systems will not do it except every employee takes ownership of organisation’s results and diligently work consistently to improve future results.

Accountability from the cultural transformation point of view is therefore the “magical” mechanism through which goals are consistently translated into desired results. Organisations must create a culture of accountability without which potentials for beneficial results can never be fully harnessed.

Cathelijne Janssen explained that it will be a very hard job reaching and achieving our goals, if conclusions are based only on facts and figures without considering the context. “Countables” will not do it except the “accountables”.

She pointed out that accountability in the work place is not the same thing with responsibility. Explaining further, she said “If you type to know the difference between accountability and responsibility in google, you will have 56 million (Fifty-six million) results, depending on the context.

Leaders and employees must not only take and own responsibilities, they must act responsibly always and feel responsible about organisation’s results. We must not just do the right things but also do them right.

She explained how her “accountability model” in the context of the organisation isolated some key accountability questions from processes, people, roles of departments and directorates at the strategic, tactical and operational levels.

We should not just focus on how much or how many but also on why, how and what. For instance, why did our customers choose to patronize our products and services instead of those of competition?

Also, as leaders and employees, how do we contribute effectively to the organisation’s goals and results? How do we further stretch ourselves, just like the elastic band, to improve quality and other desires of our customers? We must “stretch” our core business and our core values; think out of the box and achieve great results.

Organisations must ensure that the full-engagement of employees, and thereby accountability, leads to enthusiasm, interest, readiness and eagerness “to go all out” for the organisation by way of value creation.

Cathelijne Janssen explained that an organisation is not a thing but a group of people with an explicit purpose and written rules who are consciously cooperating to achieve great results.

She said that it is very important for the well-being of the organisation that employees must be accountable. She therefore recommended the acronym APPEAL.

APPEAL stands for authenticity, professionalism, passion, empathy, acceptance and leadership.

Authenticity means the organisation must at all times deliver on its promises to stakeholders. Commitment to this will deliver excellent results including big money.

Professionalism: The organisation must be ethical and committed to the “sacred” duty of always improving quality, efficiency, carrying out actions based on relevant research and creativity.

Passion: Eagerness, curiosity and energy to always go for excellent results.

Empathy: Understand your customers’ needs always and feel what they feel in order to satisfactorily guide actions.

Acceptance: Engender trust and loyalty among customers and other stakeholders.

Leadership: Leaders must be good models that influence behaviour and habits.  They must be epitomes of effective and very valuable relationship management; communicate adequately and effectively. They must also be great decision makers and lead all-embracing fact finding efforts. Leaders must “breathe life” into the business and not be the ambassadors of cultural entropy. They must shun bureaucracy, status seeking and lust for power.

Every employee must be an accountability model and he or she must always be on the lookout for opportunities for growth.

Cultural transformation through accountability, as explained above, inspires the desirable habits. For instance, blaming colleagues for making mistakes kills accountability. It is a “virus”. It spreads and kills healthy behaviour. Encourage colleagues to learn from mistakes and get along.

Do you know that with accountability, incredibly simple habits can produce extraordinary results and thereby BIG MONEY?

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