Catalyze June 22

CREATING STRUCTURES TO PROMOTE
A FULFILLING AND DIGNIFIED
WORKPLACE CONTINUED...
You can really break that down and ask yourself, why does the human body exist? It has to
pump blood and breathe oxygen, but that's not a good reason to exist, and neither is
making money a good reason to exist. It's an outcome and a necessary piece, just like
blood and oxygen are necessary to my body. So this idea is okay if you have a higher
purpose, and then you start to dig into the stakeholder model, everybody your company
touches, and even the ones that are second or third rung to your company, are being
impacted either positively, maybe in a neutral way or negatively by the decisions you
make, the supply chain decisions, the compensation decisions, the policies that you
create, the way that you show up for or against what's happening in your local community
or with the environment. And so this idea is that every single stakeholder group tied to
your company in any way should win, like win, win, win, win. And that is this law of
mutuality where we're all going to be better.
There's more to be gained by us all being in a winning situation, instead of these hard
negotiations of, ‘let me see if I can squeeze out every last penny or bit of work out of my
employees.’ So at Five, at this energy company, our stakeholders include our employees,
our clients, our vendors, our suppliers, the community, and the environment. Then we
even go so far as to say our industry, in general, is one; whether that's a strategic partner or
it's truly a competitor, that's part of our stakeholder map that we're trying to make our
entire ecosystem better for having existed. And I'll tell you one of the greatest
compliments is when someone comes home from working here for their first month, and
their spouse or their kids or their parents say you are a better, happier, more productive,
more fulfilled family member, and there must be something about the way that you're
being coached or challenged or held to account that is causing you to be nurtured and
have the chance to thrive. This is a long-winded way of saying stakeholder mentality is a
huge part of this, and it shows up everywhere in our organization and in all these
organizations. However, it's also the place that if you take your eye off of it, you can start to
have this murky gray area of making decisions that feel one-sided or take advantage of a
situation, and that could lead to short term gains financially but also really hurt and erode
the long term health of your company.
CATALYZE MAGAZINE | 17