The Market Advantage of Authenticity in Purpose

As business owners, we know it is quite disappointing when companies with promise prove themselves to be untrustworthy. We know the feeling – opening up our news apps to see a front-page headline of a company with great potential get caught up in a scandal. The large , public scandals, combined with mass layoffs in the pandemic, have created a more hesitant and market that is more distrustful of the business landscape overall.

A photo of PFD team members, and key partners, enjoying a hike in Colorado

How does your company stand out in such a market? Authenticity in purpose. Find out how you want to serve the community, authentically and wholeheartedly pursue that mission, and consider all stakeholders in decisions. Consider this quote:

“The idea has been that corporations exist to maximize shareholder value, but corporations are starting to realize that if you only focus on [financial returns], you create resistance for your growth, and that diminishes shareholder value over the long run. A smarter strategy is one that creates wealth by benefiting other stakeholders. When your growth is good for the community, employees, customers, government, the country, environment, the world, and thereby good for shareholders, that is the ultimate strategy, because everybody wants you to win.”

— Kaihan Krippendorff

Genuinely investing in a purpose and mission, and authentically serving others, is a way you can build trust and loyalty with customers. However, cultivating authenticity is not easy – it takes real, disciplined work and intentional thought.

To cultivate authenticity in your business, you will need to:

Decide what’s most important to you.

While the needs of all stakeholders should be taken into consideration, every business can focus on a specific core purpose and cause. For example, while every business can take strides to reduce their carbon footprint, and source ecofriendly products, Patagonia has taken environmental conservation to heart, making their activism and ecofriendly practices a central part of their day-to-day operations. Conversely, another wonderful company, Capital III, leverages their portfolio companies to transform the lives of prisoners – employing them with good jobs, conducting leadership and skills training, and helping to ensure successful reentry. Both companies excel in their respective missions – contributing positively to the world that we live in. To help you understand where you want your business to make the most impact, check out our Legacy Vision tool.

Create accountability.

The next step in cultivating authenticity is to create systems of accountability, both in your personal leadership development and in your business.

1. Accountability in Personal Leadership Development.

   The most effective way to cultivate accountability in personal leadership development is to get yourself into a peer group of similar business leaders. This peer group (also called a cohort or mastermind group) should consist of people who share the same experiences to mentor one another. These people should have similar goals of service as you, who will support you in your challenges, and who keep you in check to your moral obligations. They are the people who will candidly share their experiences and wisdom, to not only help you learn quicker, but also give input to make more holistic well-rounded decisions.

2. Invite relevant stakeholders to the table for decision making.

   In creating systems of accountability for your business, it is important that you give the people that are impacted by your decisions a chance to voice their opinion. For example, Monty Moran, when he was Co-CEO of Chipotle, made it a priority to visit as many restaurant locations as possible, talk to the workers there, and from that develop his priorities. With consideration of his employees, Monty then developed a managerial pipeline, creating better opportunities for employees to advance with Chipotle. This simple act of having real, authentic conversations about the needs of employees, and following through with programs to benefit them, creates a level of trust and shows authenticity in caring.

Own up to past mistakes and learn from them

Companies are run by humans. As such, no leadership team will produce 100% perfect decisions. Perhaps, before the Covid-19 pandemic, your team was pursuing an aggressive investment strategy, reducing your cash on hand, so when the recession hit you had to terminate the employment of some people. If your company really cares about your employees, and you found yourself in this situation, let the employees impacted know that you recognize your mistake, and that you apologize for the way that mistake affected them. Then, you could put genuine effort into helping them in finding a new position. Chances are that the candor with which you approach this situation will soften the frustration and hurt the employee may feel. In the future then, you could potentially learn to make sure to have more cash on hand to mitigate risk, or not overextend on payroll. While we will inevitably make mistakes, it is important that we learn from them and strive to be better in the future.

With these three considerations, we can strive to create better, more authentic businesses that our customers, communities, and employees can trust.

Why do I Need a Strategic Coach?

As sports fans, we would never expect our favorite athletes to win games without coaches. Could you imagine an Olympic gymnast getting a gold medal without someone to correct their form and push their limits? Could you imagine an American football team winning the Superbowl with the Quarterback responsible for calling all the plays, analyzing the opposing team, and coaching the defense in addition to the offense?

When we think of professional athletes, we understand how ridiculous it is to expect them to compete and win on a high level without a coach. This being said, when it comes to business leaders, we tend to expect them to perform at extraordinarily high levels without a similar kind of guidance. Like athletes, business leaders are professionals. They need to understand their strategy, execute that strategy, pivot to various demands, consistently be learning new skills, work with and lead their teams, all so that they can win in the marketplace. With all of these duties, plus ensuring that the day-to-day activities are completed, there is an extreme amount of pressure on the CEO and leadership team. This is where a business coach can help.  

Take a look at this video of Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt:

Despite the need for a coach, we have found that, in the market, there is some confusion as to what exactly strategic coaches do. Let’s provide some clarity.

Reduce stress by creating simplicity in strategy and building teams 

“I really enjoy working with Ethan for not only his creative strategic insights, but also for his ability to recruit and inspire diverse teams for lasting results.”

— Barrington Irving, CEO & Founder of Experience Aviation

First and foremost, as strategic coaches, our goal is to reduce your stress as CEOs. Typically, when CEOs come to us for coaching services, they spend the majority of their days firefighting – jumping from task to task that is necessary for business survival. In the past, when their company was smaller, these CEOs could handle many of these smaller tasks personally. As the company scales, however, these leaders find that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to handle all that is asked from them, and their days are becoming filled very quickly with duties that don’t seem to matter this much. Exacerbating these stressful days, if the CEO were to continue like this, it is very unlikely that the company would grow, because the CEO doesn’t have time to spend on their vision of the future, nor do they have the time to guide their team in getting there.

As a coaching company, it is our job to help you get out of this daily firefighting mode through both helping you simplify your strategy, as well as build a phenomenal team of leaders to support you in making that strategy come to fruition. Unnecessary complexity breeds wasted time. We will help you gain confidence and clarity in an actionable strategy that you are excited about. Further, we will engage your leadership team in the planning process, creating alignment around the strategy. We will also advise on any significant gaps in the leadership team, and how to fill them in with the right people. Many of the tasks that take up a CEO’s time could realistically be handled by a different, trusted member of the leadership team, and these team members could take on even more responsibility to drive the company into its next stage of growth. This both frees the CEO’s time to work on the business (as opposed to in the business), while creating sustainable growth.

““Everything that your team has done for us has enabled us to grow and learn in ways that are not just solving problems and putting out fires. You can get so bogged down in the minutiae of chasing your tail, and if you don’t dedicate time to growing leaders, you’re going to end up running everything in your company. And that’s not what I wanted to do. I didn’t want my job to own me.””

— Cory Prellwitz, Co-owner of Hometrends LLC

Deep knowledge of proven growth tools and execution rhythms

I’ve never gone to the gym and benefitted from watching someone else lift weights. I’ve had personal trainers show me how to lift weights, walk me through the proper form several times so I am confident and clear on my exercise routine, and that has been extremely helpful. The real power of going to the gym comes when I take what I’ve learned, and I consistently put it into practice – exercising consistently using proper form and routines. It is when I do that, that the trainer can coach me to the next level, introducing more advanced lifts and increasing weight.

At PFD, we have a similar approach to a personal trainer. With twenty years of entrepreneurial and coaching experience, plus coaching certifications through Scaling Up and 3HAG Way, we have in-depth knowledge of the strategic tools and execution rhythms that have helped thousands of companies scale their practices. Further than that, we have invested in our team to be able to support the integration of these systems into your company. Our Director of Client Success, Karissa Feese, has been doing an amazing job with our current clients teaching the software systems to leadership team members to keep the strategy central to day-to-day activities. Importantly, we won’t fill out or update these tools for you, as that would be like going to the gym and watching the trainer lift your weights for you. Rather, by implementing use of the tools, execution rhythms and software, your team will become stronger.

“After one year of working with PFD Group, we reached and exceeded goals that we didn’t think were possible at the beginning of the year.”

— Cory Prellwitz, Co-owner of Hometrends LLC

Being a trusted confidant and seeing the blind spots.

Finally, as a coach, it is my job to understand and help CEOs work through the things that have been keeping them up at night. We have the privilege of working with many CEOs across several industries, which gives us the ability to see reoccurring patterns and creatively produce solutions. When you’re in a company each day, it is inevitable to develop blind spots. Through our position as a coaching company, it is our duty to surface those issues to be solved, so that you are not blindsided by them at a later point. At PFD, one of our core values is to be the confidant - nurturing a culture of confidentiality, trust, and vulnerability. We recognize our responsibility in our positions as coaches, because when our clients reach out to us, they share their greatest opportunities and challenges. We do not take this responsibility lightly.

““Ethan, thank you for your constant encouragement and coaching. I could not have done it without you over the last two years. Thank you for being you - a compassionate, caring, coach.””

— Vijay Sajja, CEO, Evergent

As the CEO, you are the quarterback and the captain of your team.  You are on the field, leading your team, making the plays, and driving your business forward. You deserve to have someone have your back. As a coach, we have a vested interest in your growth, both as a leader and within your company. We aim to reduce your stress by drive simplicity in your strategy and building a strong leadership team around you, and we will help you implement execution rhythms and tools to consistently make progress on your strategy. Simply put, we will help you grow, while simultaneously helping you make running a company easier.

3HAG Way & PFD Group Strategic Thinking & Execution Planning Workshop May 14th

Have you ever struggled with confidently crafting a differentiated strategy? One that the whole company understands and aligned to deliver? One that puts your company in a unique and valuable position now and in the future? One that you can clearly make great decisions today and looking out 3 years –12 quarters?

These burning questions and more are answered in Shannon Susko’s & Ethan Martin’s 3HAG Workshop taking place on May 14th, 2019 in Denver, CO. You will learn how to ‘Gut Out’, develop, and implement your 3HAG (3 Year Highly Achievable Goal) and build a detailed 12 quarter-over-quarter plan (your Swim-lanes) to provide a confident execution plan designed to keep you on track to meet or exceed your stretch goal. This workshop is designed for business owners and CEOs looking to refine and focus their strategies. By learning and practicing the 3HAG 12-step process, you will dig into the key areas of your strategy to create the confidence you need to grow your business.

Learn More Here