Reviewing our Org Code — Principle #1: Clients are the reason we exist

As an organisation, we are in the process of collaboratively reviewing our Organisational Code (org code). We are taking one principle at a time down from the shelf and discussing whether the principle itself serves us, how well do we ‘live’ the principle and what could we do as a team to embed it further in our day-to-day.  

Need a reminder about what our org code is and why we have one? See below.

Our Organisational Code takes a principle-based approach to outline what we value.

These principles reflect our shared expectations of ourselves and each member of the team. They reflect what we all agree is important to us and provide a point of reference to return to when needed.

Our Organisational Code describes how we enact our values. 

Each principle guides our attitudes, interactions and practices that we apply to how we do our work, communicate with each other, and serve our clients. 

Our Organisational Code is intended to evolve as our organisation grows and diversifies, and as we learn more about how to better work together and deliver on our mission. 

We see our Organisational Code as aspirational—we will always be able to get better at applying these principles to how we do things.

In a recent all-staff meeting, we reviewed the first principle of our Org Code. As it stood, the first principle of our Org Code was currently worded:

Clients are the reason we exist: Everything we do links back to how we serve our client partners. We aim to delight our clients and support them to achieve what matters to them—this is where our value is.

It was great to talk with members of the team about what the “clients are the reason we exist” principle meant to them, how we are living the principle, if there was anything needed for us to better enact the principle across the team, and, if any changes to the wording of the principle were required.

Intent and purpose

Several diverse perspectives were raised by team members regarding the intent of the principle, including: 

• We also exist to deliver outcomes for people

• By serving our clients, we serve the community

• Stakeholders other than the client should be recognised 

There was mention of tweaking the wording of the principle to reflect that we also exist to deliver outcomes for people (e.g. service users, community members and/or people with a lived experience).

Counter to the above, it was discussed that we exist to serve our clients (i.e. the people and organisations who fund us) and that if we meet the needs of our clients, we are also serving our community.

Further, we talked about the “paying client” not always necessarily being the focus or reason we exist and that other stakeholders (both professional and community) should also be recognised (such as organisations who participate in our meetings, workshops and other project activities). 

We closed out this part of the conversation with a loose consensus that there needs to be acknowledgement somewhere in the description of the principle that serving our clients (people and organisations that pay us) is linked to outcomes for other stakeholders and the community. 

Living the principle 

We moved onto how we enact ‘clients are the reason we exist’, and the members of the team raised a number of insights, such as:

• gaining a better understanding of the clients values and goals

• being adaptable and flexible to meet client needs

• embracing that we are held to a high standard as an ‘external adviser’

• keeping communication front and centre throughout a project

We heard that we could spend more time understanding the organisation that we are working for, ensuring that we have a firm understanding of their context, what they value and what they are wanting to achieve. Additionally, we talked about the importance of being adaptable within reasonable means, acknowledging that flexibility from us is needed to meet client needs.

We talked about a very tangible example of why we need to serve our clients — if we don’t have clients, we don’t have an organisation and we need to keep that in mind.  We need to embrace the fact that we are held to a higher standard than client-side staff and be comfortable in that power dynamic (i.e. we exist to support organisations to deliver outcomes).

Further, we talked about the importance of communication and how it should be front and centre in our minds at all times throughout all of our projects. We need to be able to simultaneously engage with our clients to define and refine our approach based on their needs, deliver work that is of high quality and communicate effectively that together we are generating outcomes. 

All feedback received was incredibly valuable. 

Where to from here

After spending some time reflecting on the conversation and considering “where to from here?” a number of thoughts were solidified for our organisation:

We are engaged by our clients due to our capability and the value we bring. If we’re not adding more value than what the organisation can deliver themselves, it’s probably easier for them to not engage with us. Clients are very literally the reason we exist as they are looking for solutions to deliver something they are unable to.

We aren’t a peak body, not-for-profit or advocacy-based organisation. Our organisation needs to know its bounds and where our value lies. There are many not-for-profit organisations out there with their own agenda. We don’t have one — our focus should be razor-sharp and aligned with what our clients want to achieve. 

The work that we take on is for-purpose and aligns with our vision.  At the end of the day, we choose to bid for work (or not). The work that we do bid for should align strongly with our vision and we agree that by taking it on, we can contribute further to a “more impactful social purpose sector”. We know what we are signing up for (most of the time…). It’s stated overtly in the request for proposal documentation and told to us directly by prospective clients. Either we’re on board with what the organisation is wanting to achieve, or we don’t bid for the work.  

Serving our clients and outcomes for people are not mutually exclusive concepts. Having a focus on effectively serving our clients doesn’t mean we are ‘choosing’ our clients over delivering outcomes for the sector or community — it means we are serving our clients and delivering outcomes for the sector or community (we need to do both). It acknowledges that without our clients we literally wouldn’t be in the privileged position to serve the community. 

So bringing that all together:

• Our clients need our support due to their capacity/capability > 

• our clients hold the agenda > 

• they define what for-purpose change they want to see in the world > 

• we agree with that vision or we don’t take the work > 

• we support them to deliver outcomes in their sector, organisation or community >

• we tell them about it and continue to partner with them to deliver greater impact over time. 

Our satisfaction as an organisation should lie in knowing that serving our clients really well will result in long-term positive impacts for their sector, organisation or community.

Outcome

Taking into consideration the thoughts and insights of the team, our organisation landed on a wording change to principle #1 of our Org Code “clients are the reason we exist '. The change is small but picks up on the thread made by our team members regarding linking the outcomes of our clients with the outcomes that we are able to generate for sectors, organisations and communities:

Clients are the reason we exist: Everything we do links back to how we serve our client partners. We aim to delight our clients and support them to be more impactful for their sector, organisation or community —this is where our value is.