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Customer-Centricity and Creating Better Social Outcomes

How important do you think customers are for your not-for-profit (NFP) organisation to achieve its objectives? Can you see the relationship between customer-centricity and your organisation’s goals to create better social outcomes? In this article, I invite you to explore the concept of customer-centricity in NFP organisations, understand its values, as well as present some case studies to demonstrate how this approach can help your organisation to create better social outcomes.

Could Your Board Be Asking Better Questions?

In accordance with Section 180 of the Corporations Act (2001), ‘A director or other officer of a corporation must exercise their powers and discharge their duties with the degree of care and diligence that a reasonable person would exercise’. Section 180 also includes the Business Judgment Rule, whereby to demonstrate that a director has exercised due care and diligence, a director should be able to demonstrate that they acted in good faith, made the judgment in good faith for a proper purpose, did not have a material personal interest in the judgment, informed themselves about the subject matter of the judgment to the extent they reasonably believed to be appropriate, and rationally believed the judgment to be in the best interests of the corporation.

Diversity in the Boardroom

In the boardroom, diversity can enhance decision-making and drive more wide-ranging and probing discussions. It can also help remove the blind spots that can keep important matters out of sight. “Research shows time and time again that diversity improves outcomes in a number of ways, including financial performance, the quality of decision making, reputation and the ability to innovate,” says Alicia Curtis, co-author of Difference Makers: A Leader’s Guide to Championing Diversity on Boards.

Customer-Centric Governance… Customer is King, Cashflow is Queen

In a challenging, competitive customer-driven environment Customer-Centric Governance is critical for boards to adopt to ensure their organisation keeps on winning in the future. The need to balance and integrate ‘heads and hearts’ with ‘business and service’ is becoming increasingly more challenging, yet more compelling for directors, chief executive officers and executives (leadership teams) of community businesses (NFPs). Integrating and balancing an organisation’s business objectives and outcomes in the new customer-driven, competitive marketplace with existing or future service objectives and outcomes is a tough call, particularly given that many leadership teams remain oriented to the government-funded welfare mentality and approach.

Why External Coaching for Your Executives is Critical

There are very few safe harbours in the world these days and for the isolated CEO or executive carrying all the pressure, providing them with one will make a significant difference to their performance and longevity, and through them, the organisation. It doesn’t matter how smart, insightful or even self-aware you are, getting a quality, external perspective helps. Someone to help sort the important from the urgent, who doesn’t have a vested interest in anything other than your success.

Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk (But with Heart)

Introduction: Fiduciary Duty (Have a Heart) Board members have fiduciary duties that include acting in good faith in the best interests of their organisation, avoiding conflicts with their own personal interests, acting with reasonable care, skill and diligence and not using their positions to misuse information, gain profits or obtain benefits for themselves or for anyone else.1 Put another way, board members need to have a heart to create a culture in which the organisation’s strategy arises out of its inherent values.

The Touchy Subject of CEO Dismissal

Firing the CEO can be one of the most difficult decisions a board can make – it will also be among the most critical. However, many boards, including those of non-profit organisations, will resist bringing up the need to fire their CEOs, while other boards will be far too quick to fire their chief executives. There are many reasons a board may be slow to act when it comes to CEO dismissal:

Technology for Innovation and Development

Table of Contents Invest in technology Be a leader in technology Combine great people with great technology Source technology the market will embrace Look within your organisation Share Your Learnings Technology innovation can be absolutely critical for an organisation’s growth. How we harness its potential relies on identifying both the current obstacles and the future opportunities for business development. It’s about asking staff and customers what they need and identifying how things can be done differently or better.

Streamlining the Work of the Board

Most of the directors on not-for-profit (NFP) boards are unpaid. Many have full-time jobs, other directorships and family obligations. Putting the time they donate to good use is respectful as well as beneficial to the organisation. “Some boards waste a lot of time on management issues so directors must be very clear about their role and where their responsibilities end”, says Sallie Saunders, Principal Consultant with Building Better Boards and an experienced board member.

Adaptive Governance… Transformational Leadership

For boards of community businesses (NFPs) the move to a customer-driven, competitive marketplace is a radical departure from their known industry/sector context to which they and their management team were perfectly adapted. When any industry or sector undergoes a radical paradigm shift, it presents all boards, chief executive officers and executive teams with the dilemma of: do we disrupt our organisation, that is seriously transform our organisation, re-engineer our business model and reinvent our culture to ensure we are part of the new paradigm?