Jim Salvucci, Ph.D.
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4/1/2021

Mission as Product | Clients as Consumers | Society as Customer

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PART Two OF

PRODUCT
CONSUMER
CUSTOMER

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Last Week, Part 1:
​     What If the Way We Think about Higher Education Is All Wrong?
​In my last post, I described an alternative conception of US higher education that supplants the current thinking of the student-as-customer and the problems it engenders. I proposed that we should abandon that model for one that promotes the individual student as a consumer with society as a whole being the customer. This new paradigm merges the best of the traditional view of higher education as a meritocracy to improve society and the trending view of higher education as merely a private benefit for student careers. It also identifies the college mission as the product each institution must deliver to society.

I further suggested that this new paradigm can offer insights into most mission-driven organizational systems.
​

In a Mission-Driven Organization, Your MISSION Is Your PRODUCT

woman in buggy with whipBuggy Whips by BMW
This one should be pretty apparent. Your mission is a purpose as viewed through the lens of your organization’s values. It is what you are trying to produce or to deliver on. It keeps you centered and on track and, deployed wisely, it can be a strong incentive for both staff and leadership.

If you were a carmaker, your product would presumably be cars. But in that for-profit world, where the main value is to make money by making cars, if the same company could make money by doing something else, such as floating car loans or manufacturing buggy whips, then those would be viable options for production and profit too.

If “product” is too concrete, think of your mission then as a process or service. Whatever the analogy, your mission is both the purpose and the overarching desired outcome of your organization.

In the mission-driven and nonprofit world, the focus should largely be on the mission. If your mission is to support developmentally disabled kids, then that is what you do. You cannot get sidetracked by a sudden impulse to start a food bank no matter how altruistic and beneficial doing so may be—at least not without considerably altering the scope of your mission and your organizational structure.
​

In a Mission-Driven Organization, Your CLIENTS Are Your CONSUMERS

Just as students are a college’s principal consumers, your clients, the people and organizations you directly provide services to and/or support, are your consumers, not your customers.

So what is the difference? In the for-profit world, a customer is an individual who buys or receives a product or service; in the case of nonprofits, this would be whatever good or service fulfills the mission. With for-profits, the consumer is an individual who directly uses the product and is often one-and-the-same with the customer who makes the purchase. It is similar for nonprofits although the consumer and customer are more often separate. In many cases, the mission itself is to supply some good and/or service to clients who are not paying for that service, at least not at market value. Consequently, they consume (literally or figuratively) the goods and/or service you provide.

For instance, if the mission of your organization is to develop and provide studio space to up-and-coming artists, those artists become the consumers of whatever space and assistance you offer. This holds true even if you charge a reduced or at-cost rent. If they were clients in a purely transactional relationship in which you offer the space at an undiscounted or unsubsidized market rate, you would just be a commercial realtor. Another example: If your mission is to support a particular political cause by producing studies in line with your position, those who read and apply those studies are your consumers.
​

​In a Mission-Driven Organization, SOCIETY Is Your CUSTOMER

​At its simplest, the customer is that individual who pays you to deliver your product. For nonprofits and mission-driven organizations, this would be society itself, which, one way or another, is paying you to fulfill your mission. The payment could be through direct donations, foundation grants, government entities, or some other source. The relationship here is evidently transactional, but, just as with higher education, the idea is that your mission (product) is transformational.

Mission-driven organizations presumably serve a higher cause by adding value to society. In some cases the service to clients will directly benefit society, such as supporting economic development or promoting beautification or conserving land. In such cases, the consumer and the customer overlap or blend. Consider, if your nonprofit mission is to promote a political point of view, the very act of doing so would, in accord with your convictions, advance society. Your political opponents, though, may differ on that assumption.

More frequently, the service to society is indirect or cumulative, such as educating or feeding those in need or expanding the reach of the arts or providing religious instruction. If you are a church, your direct reach only extends as far as your congregation or the recipients of your charity, but presumably you intend the value to your individual constituents will extend through them to improve society in part or whole.

Of course, the societal improvements envisioned would be peculiar to each organization and its mission, and such improvement is in the eye of the beholder.
​

​Transformation over Transaction?

​As in my example from higher ed in Part 1, these distinctions matter. When in the past the focus of US higher ed was heavily on the mission as a transcendental aspiration and on the claim that higher ed was primarily a meritocracy that inherently benefitted society, students tended to get lost in the sauce. When the paradigm shifted to the student-as-customer model, the focus on societal benefit faded, and the student-university relationship became much too transactional. A balanced approach, with the college mission as product, society as customer, and the student as consumer, eliminates false dichotomies and recalibrates the relationship of higher ed to its product, customer, and consumer.

This healthy model can inform all mission-driven organizations albeit with two obvious caveats:
  1. Each organization and its functions are distinctive, so the precise balance of the relationship to product, customer, and consumer will vary.
  2. All analogies such as the one I am promoting are merely aids to understanding and are imperfect comparisons, not literal one-to-one formulas.

Nonetheless, considering your mission-driven organization in these terms can help you grasp its overall purpose while reconceptualizing and balancing the relations among its functions. Shifting emphasis to one area does not necessarily mean shifting focus away from another so long as their interdependence is understood. Assuring that the mission (product) is paramount does not warrant neglecting clients (consumers) or the overriding contribution of your organization to society (customer). Nor does it mean that focusing on the mission overrides organizational concerns, such as treating staff with the same dignity you seek for your clients. Doing good starts at home.

The relationship I describe deemphasizes the transactional and, when properly appreciated and calibrated, can guide your organization to be appropriately and powerfully transformational.
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3 Comments
Kathleen Spaltro link
4/1/2021 03:10:44 pm

What are the benefits that a particular society needs from a mission-driven organization? Define specific societal benefits attained through the mission.

What organizational products provide these societal benefits, thereby treating society as the customer? Relate a specific product to a particular societal benefit.

How is this organizational product furnished to consumers/members of society? Explain how, as members of society, consumers receive and benefit from this product.

Is this a correct understanding?

Reply
Jim Salvucci
4/1/2021 08:07:33 pm

Yes, in general.

Certainly your first point is correct. In your second point, I would add that the product or mission may benefit society in a broad or oblique way. Furthermore, one organization’s benefit may be perceived by another as a malignancy. I used the example of a political organization in my piece. If the organization’s mission is to promote deregulation and you support deregulation, you and the organization would differ on whether their work was beneficial.

As for your third point, quite often (most often?), the benefit would be indirect. If I lead an organization that provides food to underprivileged kids, they are the consumers. Society, as the customer, pays me through donations, grants, etc., and receives the benefit of better-fed children in the populace.

As always, the exact calibration of product, consumer, and customer (mission, client, society) is highly individual to the organization in question. Furthermore, as I caution in my piece, this analogy is just an analogy. It can lead to insight, but it lacks one-to-one precision.

Reply
Kathleen Spaltro link
4/2/2021 04:35:57 am

Thank you for your illuminating qualifications. I find the paradigm useful. I'd be curious as to how one would apply it, for instance, in reformulating the mission of higher education to attain a novel societal/customer goal of preparing consumers/citizens for a world without enough paid work to supply wage income. As I commented on your earlier post about higher education, this prospect offers both a more balanced life with leisure and greater opportunity to complete tasks that no corporation would pay workers to do--unprofitable but valuable work. The ancient Romans distracted their populace from mass unemployment with "bread and circuses." I hope we can do better than gladiatorial spectacles and hungry lions!


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    Each Thursday I post my thoughts on a variety of subjects in hopes of encouraging readers to challenge their received wisdom and cultural assumptions. I offer Human Tools+Paradigms that are designed to appeal to shared values and guide readers as they make decisions, solve problems, and just navigate the daily world. While these pieces are aimed at leaders and managers, I hope that others will find benefit in them as well. I welcome comments and responses to my posts via the comment section at the end of each on or, if you prefer, directly to my email. Also, please use the social media links to share and comment.

    Jim Salvucci, Ph.D.

    I am a former English Professor and academic administrator with experience at several institutions in the U.S. and Canada. I have a broad background in management and leadership and have mentored countless faculty, staff, and students, by offering them Tools+Paradigms to help them rethink their assumptions and practices. The Human Tools+Paradigms I present in this blog capture what I have learned from working with them and from my experience and research. You can read more about me here.


    I am inspired by the conviction that the best mission-driven organizations are designed to spend their time and effort focused on mission because they have figured out how to work well together.
    Jim Salvucci, Ph.D.

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