Five Tips To Design A Truly Human Business Model

Can business model be humanized? Can a business model made to produce both human and economic value? These are questions people often ask and wonder when they hear about the Truly Human Business Model. All they have been used to is a model that is designed to only create economic value for the founders, customers and investors.

From the example of companies like Container Store, Barry-Wehmiller, Whole Foods and other people-centric companies, you can experience how focusing on the human element of a business can help a business perform better. Business should not just be all about the what, but more about the who. The who produce the what. Barry-Wehmiller’s what is making machinery, however it defines itself to be in the business of build great people. And it has consistently outperformed its previous years performance.

Humanizing your business model is a wise business strategy. It makes people who work for you feel they matter and what they do is important. They come to work each day happy because they know they are valued. When you build your people, they will build the business and impact the community where they live. How you treat people who work for you determines to a great deal how the treat people in their livces and impact the community they belong two.

The way a business makes money matters. When you make money and destroy lives in the process, your business isn’t worth that much. Humanizing your business model transforms your business into a healing organization, a refuge for your people. People want to feel respected and their dignity honoured. Truly Human Business Model creates, captures and deliver value while elevating the human experience.

The Truly Human Business Model has three basic sections:

1. Monopoly (innovation)

2. Culture

3. Meaningful Experience

Here is how you can design a business model that produces both human and economic value at the same time:

1. Higher Purpose At Its Core

When I work with businesses to develop the Truly Human Business Model and help them transition to become Truly Human Companies, we start with why the business exist in the first place. The why is central to whatever the business does. It is what powers and keeps the business alive. That is why it exists in the first place. The core of the business must be human-centric. If its not, then the business model will lack a heart and soul.

Having a heart and a soul makes us humans. Most businesses exist to make profit. These kind of business will lose in the future because that concept of business is far fading out. Businesses must exist to add value to people and make people better than they were. Business should help people become better spouses, parents and leaders in communities. They spend 40 or more hours each week in the workplace.

The purpose should three promises to the people:

- Promise of Care to the Employee: People should feel cared value, respected and valued in the company.

- Promise of Fulfilment to Everyone: Everyone associated with the company (customers, employees, shareholders and community) should be part of advancing a cause that is bigger than life.

- Promise of Transformation To The Customer: Customers should believe that they company will have a transformational relationship with them and not a transactional one. The business should exist to transform the customers and make their future bigger and better.

2. Truly Human Culture As Its Fuel

The business model is likened to a car engine. As an engine it will need the best kind of fuel to keep it working. A Truly Human Culture is the environment the company creates that empowers their people to bring out their best and make the greatest contributions they can make. It allows their people to be authentic, free, enterprising and collaborative.

It is not about coming up with a set of values and the way people behave. These are restrictive to the human potential. You can’t legislate how people should behave and then expect them to bring out their best. You cannot condition people to be innovative or create value. Create the environment that enables them to be humans and to unleash their human potential and ingenuity.

Businesses need humanized cultures to power their humanized business model. When your culture robs people of their humanity, the business model will dehumanize them.

3. Value Proposition Makes It Attractive

What differentiate a business in the marketplace and labour market is its value proposition. The Truly Human Business Model makes a promise of value, separately, to both the employee and the customer. Most companies only have the customer value proposition. A Truly Human Company makes an offer to both the customer and its people. They don’t take their people for granted. It demonstrates that Everybody Matters.

Delivering on the value proposition creates trust. To the employees, the promise is about growth, autonomy and so on, an environment that allows them to be all they can be and make all the contribution they can make while being rewarded for their contribution. The promise includes a stake in the value they create. The Employee Value Proposition also includes a promise to be part of making a difference by advancing the cause the company is focused on.

To the customer, the promise of value is based on how their needs will be met and their wants satisfied. The promise goes beyond just their needs but also their wants. It is a promise to continually have a relationship to understand their changing needs and behaviours. A Truly Human Company is a true friend to its customers.

It also makes a promise to investors and communities. To the investor, a return on investor, while to the community a promise to develop its people into leaders who will transform the society. It makes a bold statement to send everyone home happy.

4. Meaningful Experience As Its Carriage

When the business model is humanized, it delivers meaning to all its stakeholders. Everyone connected to the company experience significance. They feel they are living for something that is bigger than life itself. They are drawn in to give more and make the greatest contribution of their lives. They know they are living. A business should give much more than pay check. Truly Human Business Model enable Truly Human Companies to give their people a life more than just help them make a living.

5. Monopoly As Its Outcome

What is the end result of these? The company becomes a monopoly in its industry and market. They become a monopoly because they are the people everyone wants to do business with. Employees want to join them to advance their cause and customers want to support them to advance the cause. Communities look forward to having them create businesses with them. Businesses want to be part of what they are doing.

That way they bypass competition and transform their competitors into clients and partners. They are way ahead of their competitors because they continually innovate for the customer. They care for their people and make them feel valued and the people care for the customers and make them feel valued. They employees go back to their families and treat them well. Their children are inspired an want to be part of the company. Their people lead initiatives in the community as leaders and the communities demonstrate gratitude to the company.

When you design the Truly Human Business Model and install it in your company, you will become a monopoly in your industry. Of course, people will have choices but they will prefer to do business with you because you are elevating their human experience.

Do you want to humanize your business model? Schedule a call with me. +2349071602727.

To help Startup Entrepreneurs get it right at the startup stage, we are launching the Truly Human Startup Academy. We will take you through what is required to build a startup that can scale and then guide you to get funding to scale. It will last for 2-3 months. It will be an online Academy. We understand that hiring the right critical people with the right mindset and startup capability is crucial to the success of the startup. To bridge that gap we will be training people who can be matched to work with startups in the Academy. Interested to be part of the first Cohort starting this January? Send an email to [email protected] or send a Whatsapp mesasage to +2349071602727 (Nigerians only please)

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