How to include a team in the business economy

In Russian business, the idea of “working for profit” still sounds like the norm. But in practice, it often leads to burnout, a drawdown in product quality, and a constant race for numbers. When attention is focused on financial performance only, attention to team development weakens, the quality of long-term initiatives decreases, and work with the company’s values is missed. In this article, I will tell you how to help a team see profit not as an end in itself, but as a development tool, and share working methods of engagement that produce results.

Profit as a tool for development

When a business begins to perceive profit as a tool rather than a goal, the very logic of management changes: the team begins to look wider, and customer relationships become stronger.

Advantages of the “profit=resource” approach:

1. Freedom to invest
Profit provides room for growth: you can develop a team, test ideas, and implement technologies.

2. Protection from external turbulence
Accumulated profits are a safety cushion at the moment and a source of independence from external instability in the long term.

3. Focus on the future
When you don’t have to get the most out of every deal, you can build for the long term, think about customer experience, brand, and service.

The negative consequences of the “profit=end in itself” approach:

● For business

Reputation suffers, customer loyalty declines, and partners lose trust. Money today is minus reputation tomorrow.

● For management

Instead of real development, there is a struggle for reports, chaotic decision-making and pressure from above.

● For the team

When the goal is just to make money for a company, it makes no sense. People don’t understand why they’re trying, where the result is, and what their contribution is.

Profit is the result of systematic, honest and conscious work. When a team understands where it comes from, how it is used, and why it is important to the business, the company has the opportunity to scale.

How to explain to the team the mission of the company and the importance of personal contribution to the overall result

Profit should be integrated into the daily logic of the work of the entire team — then it will cease to be the task of a top manager only and become the goal for all employees.

This approach is based on transparency, joint participation in decisions, and a clear explanation of cause and effect.

How to link employee actions to profit

Many employees still have the attitude: “Profit is the concern of commercial department.”

In reality, any function in the company — from HR to accounting — either earns or helps to earn. It is important to show this with concrete examples.

Here are some cases from my practice:

The sales manager sees how the terms of the contract (terms of payment, discounts, deferrals) directly affect the profitability of the transaction, and takes this into account during negotiations.
An HR specialist understands how staff turnover affects productivity and profits, and works to reduce cost-per-hire, rather than just closing vacancies.
The financial analyst does not limit himself to accounting, but offers cost optimization scenarios without loss of quality.

To make this logic work systematically, I use the “value chain” tool inside the teams. It helps every employee to see: “my task → affects this metric → which affects profit.”

Thanks to this chain, employees begin to see their role in the overall result.

What and how to tell the team

I use the following practice: every year, my team and I formulate a common profit goal, define a benchmark, and together think through the real steps to achieve it.

This approach creates co-authorship, trust, and a sense of “this is my goal too.”

What we are discussing:

Key financial indicators: gross margin, profitability, break-even points;
Annual profit targets and dynamics;
Reasons for growth and drawdowns (in numbers and actions).

Engagement formats

I’ve done a format that works great more than once: once a year, we gather the entire office and discuss profit goals together, dividing them into areas of influence. We determine what is critical for the product, for the service, and for sales.

We analyze together:

current and projected financial results,
what caused margin growth and what caused drawdown,
where were the mistakes and what can be changed.

To make the team understand the business economics not only in words, it is possible to visualize key indicators. Dashboards are located on each floor of the office — large information panels that display overall figures, margins, and progress by division.

They are regularly updated and show how things are going in real time: where we are relative to the quarterly target, which departments are contributing, and where there is a drawdown.

This transparency helps the team to feel the movement. When you see that, thanks to the efforts of your department, the overall indicator has shifted, you get a sense of involvement.

Who is responsible for engagement?

It is simple here: heads of departments. These are the very “translators” of strategy into the language of daily actions. Their task is to explain logic:

why this particular metric is important;
how can the team influence it;
what actions will be the priority.

When we talk about involving employees in financial results, it’s easy to slip into manipulation.

Phrases like “we’re on the same side” or “you make a profit — the company provides support” sound inspiring, but there must be real concern for people behind them.

Three red lines that you can’t go beyond

1. To demand super efforts without resources and feedback.
When employees are expected to do more, but they are not given any tools, support, or recognition of the result, there is a risk of burnout.

2. Use slogans instead of honest dialogue.
The phrase “we are one family” should not replace an open conversation about tasks, responsibilities and boundaries. People need to understand why and how they need to work.

3. Set unattainable goals that depend on external factors.
“You have to increase profits by 30%” sounds cheerful, but if this is not possible with current resources, goals turn into a demotivator.

What helps to avoid kinks

Here are three principles that help me keep a balance: to achieve results without destroying motivation and partnership.

● Focus on customer value
Instead of the abstract “we need to increase revenue”, it is worth formulating the task more concretely: to understand exactly how everyone’s work helps the client solve his problem, and thereby strengthen relationships and increase income.

● Management is more important than motivational speeches
People don’t have to be “in the flow” every day — it’s the manager’s job to set up the system so that the result is even on normal days.

● Environmental friendliness as a rule
Don’t trade trust for revenue. Respect for borders, transparency, and realistic expectations are the basis of partnerships.

Influence, meaning, and recognition as fuel for the team

In a business where strategy, partnership, and long-term solutions are important, a salary alone is not enough.

Yes, financial motivation is a base, but it is impossible to rely on it if a person does not feel the meaning, influence and value of his work.

What works better than bonuses

Something that gives a person a sense of importance: the opportunity to influence the outcome, understanding the meaning of your work and recognizing efforts.

When a person sees, “Here’s my idea, and here’s a 5% margin,” they become interested in going deeper, offering more, and thinking more broadly than just within the job description.

If, instead of formal KPIs, you show: “You help a client solve a difficult task, and he stays, recommends, and returns,” motivation becomes internal rather than external. There is a connection between action and meaning.

Successes should be discussed not once a year, but regularly at work sessions and meetings. It is important to note not only the totals, but also the path that led to them: non-standard solutions in difficult situations, suggestions for optimizing processes, introducing new approaches, and successful teamwork.

How engagement affects profits

One of the key conclusions that I have made in the process of transforming the management approach: Explaining business goals is an investment in results.

I’ll give you an example from practice of how involving employees in profit logic has increased work efficiency without additional sales and staff expansion.

At the session with the management, a typical story was told: “We have a finance department, foreign economic activity specialists, technical specialists — they just provide processes. Only those who negotiate with customers or with foreign manufacturers have an impact on profits.”

At the same time:

complex equipment projects were delayed due to exchange rate fluctuations or incorrect financial routes that were not taken into account in advance;
indirect logistics routes were chosen without analyzing the risks and reputations of logistics partners, which led to delays and surcharges;
technical acceptance of the equipment revealed inconsistencies that could have been prevented at the stage of specification approval;
contracts with foreign suppliers contained “grey areas”, which caused us to incur unforeseen expenses.

The paradox: each department worked according to its own logic, not understanding how their decisions affected the final margin of 6-8-month projects.

What we have done:

My team and I organized an analysis of the real project: we signed a contract for the supply of industrial equipment from Europe worth 180 thousand euros. We gathered all the participants in the process and went all the way from the terms of reference to the final acceptance. And they immediately saw where:

currency risks have “eaten up” 2% of the margin due to an incorrectly chosen hedging scheme;
a suboptimal logistics route added 3 weeks to the deadline and 15 thousand euros to the budget;
inaccuracies in the technical requirements led to improvements on the manufacturer’s side at our expense.

Thereafter:

checklists of the impact on the financial result were prescribed for each stage;
we have introduced weekly meetings on active projects with a discussion of risks;
we have created a database of standard solutions for standard situations (exchange rate fluctuations, logistical failures, technical inconsistencies).

What changed after two quarters

the currency and finance department reduced exchange rate losses from 2-3% to 0.5% of the contract amount;
logisticians have reduced the average delivery time by 2 weeks due to the development of alternate routes;
the number of technical improvements at our expense has fallen by 3 times;
the average project margin increased from 3-5% to 8-12%;
free up time to work with new clients.

The habitual “we have nothing to do with it” cost the business profits. As soon as everyone understood their point of influence, the numbers went up.

Money doesn’t work without meaning

It is worth involving employees in business logic: to show how their actions affect the financial result, where the value is born, and where the losses are.

When a person understands that the success of a team depends on him, he works in a different way – thoughtfully, with interest, with attention to detail. This is especially important in B2B, where customer trust becomes a competitive advantage.

If business is an engine, then profit is gasoline. However, even if you put the most expensive 95th gasoline in the tank, the car won’t go if the gear isn’t on, the wheels aren’t aligned, and the driver doesn’t understand the route.

It’s the same in the company: money alone is not enough to make things move. The real movement begins when the team understands how the system works, what role everyone plays, and what result it is leading to.