The Key to Team Wellbeing and Productivity

Before I kick off this week I wanted to let you know I did a TEDx Talk recently and I'd love to share it with you. If you get a chance to watch it I'd really appreciate it if you could leave a comment on YouTube and share it with anyone you think would benefit from the message. Thanks in advance. B

...Back to it!

Contribution and Cash Flow

Let's talk about contribution and cash flow. Your business making a contribution doesn't have to involve a trade off or be an expense that requires justification. When your contribution is aligned with your customers interest it can bring confidence, a competitive advantage and assist with cash flow rather than being an added burden in your business.

If you want to jump right in and watch this week’s episode of the podcast, you’ll find the video below, or scroll to the bottom of the page for the audio.

In the podcast this week I share how to foster a supportive work environment by integrating meaningful contributions into your business model without harming cash flow.

Last week I shared my 3 Bs Framework - you can download an overview of it here. It's a dynamic approach designed to help you equally prioritise your Beneficiaries, your Business, and your "Bankers".

In this weeks podcast I focus on how you can better prioritise and understand your beneficiary. This may not be a word that you are familiar with in a business setting. It’s borrowed from the social or charitable sector, and I admit it’s not a great word, for multiple reasons, but please bear with me. I am using it for one practical reason, that it allows you to change hats and look at managing and measuring the impacts your business is having on the people or issues you have identified that you want to contribute to creating some positive change for. I am also using it for a selfish reason, I like alliteration so the 3Bs kind of works for me!?

Think back for a moment to the three common ways I outlined that you can do good inside your business. They were to take a Customer Focus, a Team Focus, or a Production Focus. I want to use those three approaches to give you some examples of who your beneficiary might be.?

You can think of it like this:?

• Customer Focus = Your Customer is your beneficiary?
• Team Focus = Your Team are your beneficiary?
• Production Focus = People and/or the Planet are your beneficiaries. For example, in your business it may be the people working for your suppliers that you are now seeking to positively impact through safe working conditions and fair pay. It could equally be the environmental impacts of your production, packaging, and transport that you’re focusing on.

Here are two questions to ask when showing more respect, and assigning more power, to your beneficiary.??

1) Do they actually want the outcomes that your product/service or intervention is seeking to achieve???

2) If so, which of the particular actions you are taking do they feel contribute to them experiencing that outcome???

It’s important to take the time to stop and put yourself in the shoes of the Beneficiary and reflect on their position and perspective to try and bring to the surface your own bias or projection. The best way to do this is with direct engagement and asking them rather than assuming you know the answer.?

Asking pertinent questions and gathering evidence to substantiate your decisions, will align your operational strategies with stakeholder interests. This can help your decision-making as you seek to enhance customer retention. When it comes to cash flow it also moves you out of the land of ill-informed decisions based on assumptions and into the land of informed, evidence-based decisions.

Check out the full episode if you want to hear some examples and explore these ideas further.

You can listen to my Podcast right here on LinkedIn, where I give three clear examples to illustrate each of the focus areas of Customer, Team, and Production in relation to the Beneficiary.

Merging Money & Meaning Masterclass - Register FREE Now!

If you've been reading the newsletter and watching or listening to the podcast for a while, now is a great time to join me live for our next round of Masterclasses so you can ask questions and make all of this more real in your business.

I’m excited to share practical ways you can reclaim the reins and build a stronger business. We’ll be covering:

• How to identify the levers in your business model that you can pull to stabilise;
• How to get more out of your team; and
• How to better mitigate risk and tap into opportunities in the current market.

Register now and if you know of any other business leaders who might benefit from joining us, you can share the details by simply sending them to: www.bessigraham.com/masterclass?