As we celebrate our 10th anniversary at CTG, I’ve been reflecting on how we built this company into an excellent small business and employee-owned social enterprise.

Over the years, we have made big decisions that laid the foundation for this company. Of the countless choices along the way, I believe these are the five best decisions we ever made.

1. Hiring only full-time, salaried professionals.

Our industry consistently relies on contract, temporary, and/or offshore or outsourced staffing.

I believe relying on temporary workers leads to inconsistent delivery. A loose consortium of contractors or external partners just does not have the same experience working together as a team. I believe it also creates a fundamental lack of accountability to clients and outcomes, as those doing the work are degrees separate from those needing the work.

I can appreciate someone needing part-time or flexible work to accommodate their personal situation. However, once contract work is integrated into a company’s operating model, it tends to become a cost-saving measure through which employees can be denied healthcare, paid time off, or the basic security of ongoing employment.

Our decision to employ only full-time, salaried professionals runs counter to all of this. The people doing the work are directly responsible to our clients. The team operates as a team and that higher level of function translates to better outcomes and a better work environment. And ultimately – I believe it makes us a better employer as we offer solid benefits, pay and security.

2. Remaining mission-driven.

I can’t imagine working for a company without a purpose. This is especially true today as we confront massive challenges in inequity, environmental damage, and intolerance. Given how many of our waking hours we spend at work, I have trouble imagining how we address these issues without them being part of the fabric of our company.

Since our founding ten years ago, 100% of our clients are mission-driven organizations. They come in many shapes and sizes and further a range of different causes across a wide variety of delivery models, including:

• Our community development clients are spurring economic development, revitalizing our communities, and mitigating climate change.

• Our health and human services clients are combating chronic disease, opposing gun violence in schools, providing crisis care, and much more.

• Our science and historical clients are conducting evidence-based research, studying our past, and ensuring our society’s best days are ahead.

Making our work matter is essential to what this company has been for the past ten years. It is why I have come to work every day for the past decade and expect to for a decade more.

3. Becoming employee-owned.

Less than 15% of American workers have any stake in the companies they work for and the great majority of those have an incremental small piece in the form of stock options. In other words, most Americans go to work every day for someone else or in service of making money for people they will never meet. This just feels wrong to me.

I was never comfortable with the idea of a founder that could accrue the combined rewards of everyone at the company in perpetuity. A single person with full control over the entire company, unchecked, also felt unwise. The potential for short-term thinking associated with the whims of one person felt irresponsible, given the responsibility for the many lives that would be impacted.

Perhaps the easiest, but also most important decision of the past 10 years was to convert the firm to employee ownership. Our employee-owners have a direct, financial stake in the success of the firm. We also have a democratic mechanism of governance as we elect members directly to our board. Our CEO reports directly to that board.

I believe this decision also has had a direct impact on staff retention and investment in our work. In an industry marked by high turnover, people tend to stay for a meaningful piece of their career. If we express a need at the firm, we often have people raise their hands to be a part of the solution.

Employee ownership makes us a better employer, a better company, and a better service provider to our clients. Learn more about our employee ownership model here.

4. Rejecting “coin-operated” sales approaches.

Sales professionals are often taught to be “coin-operated.” The term originates with the somewhat jaded assumption that people will be most motivated to perform by direct, financial incentives.

It enables short-term, immediate thinking (e.g. close what you can right now to hit a financial benchmark, regardless of the impact downstream). Taken to extremes, it means “strip-mining” clients for maximum, near-term financial gains at the expense of a client’s trust. It also demeans the contribution of sales professionals to a single number at the expense of all else.

I believe this thinking is wrong and it will not be a part of this company so long as I have a say in it. We do not commission sales. Ever.

I will never put an incentive in front of a member of my staff that could conflict with our client’s needs and, therefore, our client relationship. Closing a bad contract with a low probability of success should not come with a financial reward.

Any member of our firm selling services to prospects or clients is motivated instead by the mission at hand, the programmatic or fundraising goal that our work may help to meet, and the satisfaction of a successful project. We are not against making a living, but our incentives will come in the form of profit-sharing as it better reflects the outcome and the overall health and integrity of our company.

5. Leading with Managed Services.

Much of consulting is focused on the big, transformative change. Historically, the money and margin has been in large-scale deployments and, therefore, that is where the industry put its emphasis.

Selling the “big change” often means setting visionary (read: unrealistic) expectations, binding yourself to a short-term procurement process (e.g. an RFP that will decide in 90 days), and racing to the bottom on cost. In short, the environment many projects originate in is surrounded by risk – if not destined to fail.

We elected to engage our clients in a different way. We certainly do the “big change” projects but most often we engage organizations through Managed Services.

This approach provides an on-ramp to a client’s culture and an opportunity to build an effective working relationship. It allows us to find a mutual partnership from which we can explore larger change without being engaged in an aggressive, short-term, pre-sale activity.

A business model centered around Managed Services has had a profound impact on our company. We typically work with organizations for years. We build trust, continuity, and transformation over time. It lowers the risk for our portfolio and the organizations we serve.

Conclusions

Running a small business these past 10 years has taught me an incredible amount about industry, our responsibility as an employer, and about my own personal values. As I look back on the past decade, I see a company I am proud to have worked at and I am surrounded by colleagues I have enormous respect for.

We do excellent work with a great team of professionals who care about our clients and their missions. We rejected a lot of the conventional thinking in favor of a business model that allows us to be thoughtful and forward-looking. We own our work. We are strong now and get stronger every day.

Photo Caption: BJ Cortis, Founder and CEO of Craftsman Technology Group, signing employee ownership conversion paperwork on June 30, 2022.