Purpose Before Profit: Kevin Gyolai of Gyolai Consulting On The Benefits Of Running A Purpose-Driven Business
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Discipline and a stoic mindset are characteristics purpose-driven leaders, and successful entrepreneurs in general, must possess.
In today’s competitive business landscape, the race for profits often takes center stage. However, there are some leaders who also prioritize a mission-driven purpose. They use their business to make a positive social impact and recognize that success isn’t only about making money. In this interview series, we are talking with some of these distinct leaders, and I had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Gyolai.
Kevin Gyolai, PhD, is the CEO of Gyolai Consulting, where for over a decade he’s helped clients identify and focus on the handful of things that really matter to their success. His purpose is helping people and organizations reach their full potential. Kevin has helped clients around the world improve their businesses and their lives.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us your “Origin Story”? Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
Thanks for inviting me! I grew up in farm country of North Dakota where I learned about hard work and grit. I developed a boundless optimism and strong work ethic. As a young man I was self-confident, wild, and eager.
When I went off to university, I had three strikes against me when it came to earning a college degree: I came from a low-income family, was a first-generation college student, and I tested into remedial math. The statistical chance of me earning a PhD from a tier one research university was slim. Good thing no one ever told me that!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
My favorite story comes from our work with a client in the United Kingdom. We were working with the owners of one of the most recognized real estate brands in Europe, and they were frustrated. Their business was successful but had plateaued. The visionary felt trapped by the daily grind of running the business. He wanted to work on the business, not in it. We implemented and integrated a business operating system across the entire organization, and I acted as the fractional COO. The business was quickly focused on the handful of things that really mattered, and as a result customer inquiries went up, revenues increased, and employee satisfaction improved. And importantly, the owners’ lives were better!
The visionary emailed me one Saturday morning to tell me that he and his wife had just gone for a walk and had stopped for an easy lunch, something they’d not done in years. We helped him improve his business and his life, and that’s the stuff that feeds my soul.
We often learn the most from our mistakes. Can you share one that you made that turned out to be one of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned?
Just before COVID hit I created a comprehensive business operating system for small business owners. You can think of a business operating system as a complete toolkit for owning and operating a small business. I had big dreams for this product, and it had great potential, but in the months to follow I failed to view it objectively in light of current events.
My training as a scientist has helped me cultivate an observational mind, but emotion sometimes creeps into my thinking. In the last several years the small business consulting landscaped has been rocked by the pandemic and the associated economic slowdown; small businesses were particularly hard hit. I had to leverage my observational, objective mind to see things for what they were and not what I wanted them to be. The paradigm changed very quickly and I, like most other entrepreneurs, had to adapt and redirect to survive.
A manifestation of this was when we choose to cancel the launch of the new product (the business operating system), which we spent many months creating. It simply wasn’t going to be successful during and immediately after a global pandemic. I eventually saw things for what they were and adjusted our priorities by sticking with our bread-and-butter services.
As a successful leader, it’s clear that you uphold strong core values. I’m curious what are the most important principles you firmly stand by and refuse to compromise on. Can you share a few of them and explain why they hold such significance for you in your work and life?
Two core principles I don’t compromise on are “Purpose over passion” and “Do the right thing.” Purpose is the simmering, persistent determination to succeed, to accomplish a mission through discipline and hard work. Passion, while valuable, burns brightly and hot, but can exhaust itself quickly, often before meeting customer needs or reaching profitability. Companies that generate good profit are more often described as being purposeful.
Purpose and profit do not need to conflict with each other, and the choice is not purpose or profit. Purpose and core values can drive profit, especially good profit, which is profit earned by meeting customer needs and benefiting society by providing products or services that are valued more than the alternatives. This general concept comes from Charles Koch and his book, Good Profit.
As for “Do the right thing,” this core principle manifests in what projects we take on and how we act. For example, we only take on customers we’re certain we can help and who are committed to changing. Doing the right thing comes down to acting with honor and integrity in all things.
What inspired you to start a purpose-driven business rather than a traditional for-profit enterprise? Can you share a personal story or experience that led you to prioritize social impact in your business?
My years as an educator and a nonprofit CEO influenced my desire to start a purpose-driven company. Professionally, I grew up in purpose-driven organizations with core values like social justice, problem solving, and continuous growth. I experienced first-hand the power of purpose in organizational drive and effectiveness.
Can you help articulate a few of the benefits of leading a purpose-driven business rather than a standard “plain vanilla” business?
Purpose-driven organization have an unwavering North Star that guides their culture, actions, and growth. They tend to be more disciplined and take a long-term view of success. These attributes provide focus, which is an essential element in the success of any organization.
Passion-driven or “vanilla” businesses can falter in the long run because they lose focus on the handful of things that really matter to success.
How has your company’s mission or purpose affected its overall success? Can you explain the methods or metrics you use to evaluate the impact of this purpose-driven strategy on your organization?
Our success is measured by more than our profitability or status. We measure success by measuring the change in performance on our client’s scorecard. And equally as important, we measure our success on how we improve the human elements of performance, such as: employee retention, work-life balance, employee satisfaction scores, etc. This approach to evaluating the impact of our company led to managed and sustained growth.
Can you share a pivotal moment when you realized that leading your purpose-driven company was actually making a significant impact? Can you share a specific example or story that deeply resonated with you personally?
We once worked with the majority owner of a nationally recognized electrical contracting firm on the sale of his company to private equity. We created and executed the internal communication plan and coached the owner throughout the acquisition process. We knew our impact was significant when the transition occurred without the loss of key employees or customers. Additionally, the private equity firm told us that our communication plan and process was the best they’d ever seen.
Have you ever faced a situation where your commitment to your purpose and creating a positive social impact clashed with the profitability in your business? Have you ever been challenged by anyone on your team or have to make a tough decision that had a significant impact on finances? If so, how did you address and reconcile this conflict?
The COVID pandemic tested our commitment to a lot of things, including running a purpose-driven business. Many small business owners stopped spending money on consulting during the pandemic. In fact, we advised our primary client at the time, who was our absolute favorite, that they couldn’t afford us, at least not for a while. This is an example of doing the right thing by our customers, and it had a significant financial impact on our business. As a team, we talked openly about this difficult situation and how it would impact our business and came together on this course of action.
What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs who wish to start a purpose-driven business? What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Purpose-Driven Business.”
1 . A North Star is an essential element to creating organizational vision and mission. A company’s North Star is its unwavering definition of its purpose, customers, and products or services. The North Star provides focus, which is key to success in life and business.
In our management consulting work we often see tremendous gains in our customer’s performance simply through improved focus.
2 . In the same theme, proper focus is critical to leading purpose-driven organizations. This means tactical and strategic focus on the handful of things that drive results and success, both for your business and your customers.
For example, purpose-driven organizations must stay true to their North Star while also tracking their performance in the short-term. Doing so allows them to remain focused during chaotic times and to manage risk more thoughtfully.
3 . Discipline and a stoic mindset are characteristics purpose-driven leaders, and successful entrepreneurs in general, must possess.
The global COVID pandemic will go down as one of the most difficult business environments in modern history. I encourage leaders to remember it, to learn from it, and to use it as preparation for future downturns.
4 . Leaders of purpose-driven organizations must hire people that not only share their purpose and vision but also are competent. In my time working with non-profits, I saw many examples of employees that rallied around the purpose of the organization but where largely incompetent; they were hired for their passion. Passion is not enough. Purpose-driven organizations must produce results, or they will fail.
5 . Purpose-driven organizations must do what is right by their customers. This is easy to say but hard to do.
At Gyolai Consulting, we take a slow and deliberate approach to acquiring and on-boarding new customers to ensure proper fit, clear expectations, and open communication. This has paid dividends for both our customers and us in terms of results obtained and overall satisfaction.
I’m interested in how you instill a strong sense of connection with your team. How do you nurture a culture where everyone feels connected to your mission? Could you share an example or story that showcases how your purpose has positively influenced or motivated people on your team to contribute?
There are lots of ways we do this, but weekly team meetings that focus on both mission and performance, where all team members report out on at least one performance element they own, are like magic for building purpose-driven organizations that run like clockwork.
Imagine we’re sitting down together two years from now, looking back at your company’s last 24 months. What specific accomplishments would have to happen for you to be happy with your progress?
I imagine future success for Gyolai Consulting in the space of thought leadership and training/development of small business owners; I am a teacher at heart, and I still feel a strong pull back to that space.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I would start a movement that focuses on reducing the amount of food that is wasted by those of us that have plenty. There is so much wasted food in the USA alone. Just think of how many more people could be fed if we didn’t waste so much.
How can our readers further follow your work or your company online?
Yes! They can visit Gyolai.com or follow me on LinkedIn.
This was great. Thanks for taking time for us to learn more about you and your business. We wish you continued success!
Oh, you’re welcome. It was my pleasure!
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com
