CHAPTER 5 PURPOSE

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea”

Antoine De Saint Exupery¹

Purpose refers to the very reason that something is done or for which something exists. The broader the aim, the bigger the goal. Purpose is not a given for organizations or individuals; it is something that needs to be crafted and defined, something that has to be believable if it is to be believed in.

Clarifying purpose is the starting point for the 31Practices framework and in this chapter, we explore what makes it so fundamental to our approach.

“Purpose expresses the company’s fundamental value – the raison d’etre or over-riding reason for existing. It is the end to which the strategy is directed”

Richard Ellsworth²

As human beings, we are keen to make meaning of our existence. Creating stories and reasons for events is something that we do almost without thinking. This search for meaning on a grand scale centres around questions such as “Why am I here?” Creating a meaning and purpose to life – the sense of making a contribution in some way – is one of the factors that leads to happiness and contentment. A meaningful purpose enables people to tap deep wells of energy and resource.³ In contrast, a life without purpose can leave people with an internal emptiness and an inescapable yearning that many try to fill by tangible and transitory possessions and experiences (for more, see Chapter 12, Happiness).

Understanding your individual purpose can be a challenge. Some coaching clients that we work with comment that this is something they have been thinking about for a long time, while others have great clarity about what their purpose is. To speed up the process of finding your purpose, it’s often useful to start at the other end of the time line. When you look back on life:

•     What do you want to be remembered for?

•     What legacy do you want to leave?

•     What do you want people to say about you?

Looking at purpose this way can really help you focus.

Roberto Assagioli, a 20th-century Italian psychiatrist, emphasized the personal will required to fully live your purpose. He noted that to live your purpose every moment requires mastery through determination and persistence; however, the reward is intense energy, dynamism and focus as you synthesize and integrate all that you are into each present moment.⁴

From the perspective of organizations, connecting people with a broader purpose in the work that they do taps into the energy and resources that people have at their disposal. The traditional transactional contract between employer and employee, a trade of time for pay, doesn’t engage hearts and minds, and can disengage some as people look for fulfilment from their work. It’s perhaps no surprise then that many organizational leaders recognize the value of connecting at an emotional level with employees.

Take some of the success stories of modern business: IBM’s nimbleness and longevity is attributed to its view of itself “as an organization loyal to the idea of packaging technology for use by business.”⁵ Others that are animated by ideas rather than products include Apple, who package the latest technology in simple, elegant form and sell it at a premium – their purpose is about inspiring and amazing people; Samsung, who are dedicated to making a better world; Amazon, making it easy for people to buy stuff and Facebook, helping people share things with friends easily. You may think Starbucks would be focused on selling coffee but they have a far deeper sense of purpose “Our mission: to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time”.

Looking at Asia and the very real war for talent in growing economies; community, meaning and a sense of purpose in organizations are even more important because of the sense of pride in the nation, and in increasing self-expression.⁶ Ian Mintram,⁷ GlaxoSmithKline, Senior Vice President, HR leadership of Emerging Markets, Asia Pacific and Japanese, believes that GSK fares reasonably well in terms of this war because the organizational strategy of contributing more to the wider society taps into a deeper sense of purpose among current and future employees.

In our own business, we ask potential partners what their purpose is. The answer is revealing, and not always something that our partners have thought about to a significant degree. Whatever the response, it enables us to understand whether a partnership with the company or individual is likely to be successful.

WHAT DOES PURPOSE DO FOR YOU?

Mission, vision and values statements are fundamental to strategic planning and good management. At best, they offer a powerful governance tool, bringing clarity, consistency and purpose. To be effective, such statements need to be “lived” and “compel” people to action – connecting people to the broader intent of the organization.

An organization with a clear and compelling purpose is potentially able to evolve without experiencing a level of chaos that is disabling because its overall direction, principles and intent are clear and consistent. This exact point was noticed by a client implementing 31Practices who stated “it [31Practices] provided a sense of purpose for employees at a time of significant change”. In this case, the change referred to was significant headcount reduction.

The board, employees and wider stakeholders gain a sense of pride in working for an organization that stands for something they can believe in, “get behind” and are united by. A meaningful purpose lives beyond your organization’s annual report and web page, bringing guidance and inspiration to all your initiatives. This principle of purpose was noted and captured by Jim Porras:⁸ a guiding philosophy or spirit takes an organization beyond the mediocre.

Charlotte Rainer describes the shared sense of purpose as the golden thread that becomes a fantastic rope that people can hang on to. In the current context where change is business as usual, this golden thread can be of particular value.⁹

ELEMENTS OF A DEFINING PURPOSE

An effective purpose will:

•     make you feel energized. It needs to engage you at an emotional level.

•     enable you to act. It needs to motivate you, to support you to bring your creative, innovative “best self” to work.

•     be lived by those at the top. To be seen as believable and worthwhile, it has to be something that leaders prioritize and act by.

How does your organization’s purpose make you feel?

A defining purpose needs to be something that you can line up behind. Purpose engages the Heart. Imagine for a moment meeting someone who told you that their purpose in life was to “enable others to be free”. How does that purpose make you feel? This is a really transcending purpose, i.e. it doesn’t matter through what means the freedom is enabled. The person enabling others to be free may be a lawyer, a coach, a school teacher, a scientist, a personal trainer, a receptionist, a road-sweeper. What is your defining purpose?

Imagine for a moment that a global conglomerate had the defining purpose of “Changing the world”. Immediately, there is something that grabs your attention. Steve Jobs, luring John Sculley, then CEO of PepsiCo, to Apple, famously and ultimately successfully evoked Sculley’s sense of purpose by asking “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”¹⁰

Any kind of work has the possibility to provide purpose. Take this story from an unknown source:

A man is walking along a construction site where there are people building a wall. He says to the first person, “What are you doing?” “Earning enough money to live” was the reply. He walked on and asked the next person the same question. This time the answer was “I am building a wall, I have been a bricklayer all my life and I am the best there is”. Walking on, the man asked the question of a third person and the answer was “I am building a cathedral in the glory of God”.

Bringing this story into a recent context, just remember how engaged the volunteers were at the recent Olympic games held in London, in the UK in 2012. Similarly, in Vancouver in the 2010 winter Olympic games, volunteers worked extremely hard for no significant tangible rewards; instead, they worked for the opportunity to “be a part of something”, “one of the biggest events in the world”.¹¹ Compare this to how employees feel when there is economic uncertainty and the possibility of redundancy. The attitude of volunteers such as those at the Olympics is a function of their choice to be there and the sense of purpose to contribute to a global showcase event.

How does your organization’s purpose enable you to act?

Take the NASA employee who was sweeping the floor. When asked what his job was, he replied, “to put a man on the moon”. Perhaps this story is an urban myth, but it illustrates the power of purpose. Whatever the skills and resources the man brought to his work (the means at his disposal), he was putting them towards a meaningful purpose. How proud and motivated must he have felt when his alarm clock rang in the morning?

A purpose that goes to the very heart of why the organization exists and enables employees to bring more of their full selves – because they care about the bigger idea – will inspire motivation and engage people. Even if that purpose is about profit maximization, “to make as much money as possible”, as long as the purpose is clear, people can buy into it and get behind it, or choose not to, but the choice about what you are engaging in is evident rather than hidden.

Organizations can and do successfully exist without an engaging purpose. But what used to define competitive advantage has shifted from efficiency to effectiveness. Efficiency can be repeated, copied and adapted and is based on structures, processes and hard systems. Effectiveness comes from people committing to an organization enough to use their knowledge, innovation and creativity.

There is certainly no one way to define your organization’s purpose as these vignettes show:

•     HCL Technologies have a purpose that is about engaging the passions of their employees. They look at each employee’s top five passions, and the line manager is then required to facilitate and enable employees to realize those passions in their work. This idea works from the philosophy of employee first; customer second. If you ensure a focus on employee engagement, employee empowerment and employee enablement (the three E’s), those employees then focus on customer delight, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.¹²

•     Richard Branson’s Virgin group has “making a difference” as a core purpose. Each year, the group celebrates some of those people who have gone the extra mile around the Virgin world at the Virgin Stars of the Year Awards. With so many different companies, nationalities and personalities represented under one roof, they all have in common the pride they take in their work, and in the company they represent. Virgin recognize that staff are the biggest brand advocates, and focusing on helping them take pride will shine through in how they treat customers.

•     Apple is about inspiring and amazing people by challenging the boundary of what is thought to be possible. The purpose “enriching people’s lives” instils a purpose far greater than just selling or fixing products. Apple has been an immense success story, resting on a fan base that ensures a steady supply of eager job applicants and an employee culture that tries to turn every job into an exalted mission. “When you’re working for Apple you feel like you’re working for this greater good” says a former salesman. One manager said it was common for people offered jobs to burst into tears. Newly hired devotees then become disciples. If there is a secret to Apple’s success, this is it: the company ennobles employees.¹³

•     Southwest Airlines is dedicated to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit. Co-founder Herb Kelleher has been called perhaps the best CEO in America by Fortune magazine. Under his leadership, Southwest became the most consistently profitable, productive, and cost-efficient carrier in the industry: earning the “Triple Crown” award for best on-time performance, baggage handling, and customer satisfaction for four years running. Kelleher’s belief: “If you create an environment where the people truly participate, you don’t need control. They know what needs to be done, and they do it. And the more that people will devote themselves to your cause on a voluntary basis, a willing basis, the fewer hierarchies and control mechanisms you need.”¹⁴

Imagine if you were able to engender this passion in your own organization.

How do the leaders in your organization live that purpose?

A purpose has to be lived at the top – otherwise it is just a marketing gimmick. If a motivated, energized workforce is essential to accomplishing organizational goals, and if motivated workers will overcome all obstacles, defying the odds, then they must be purposeful, brimming with passion and committed energy. This is where leadership comes in. Leaders have to first be sure of their own purpose – not just in knowing how to get what they want but also in being focused in driving and inspiring purpose throughout the organization. Leaders instil purpose by communicating it through even the smallest behaviours.

The best CEOs are driven by their own purpose and passion and connect other people to that purpose.

Most leaders, directors and business owners feel a sense of fulfilment because they believe they are doing work that matters to them and their company. The challenge is inspiring those that work for them. Leaders can get so absorbed in the noise of the day-to-day business that they fail to pay attention to careful messaging, and can fall short in communicating that inspiring belief to others.

Leaders often say they “don’t have time” – but in reality, many leaders we work with spend the time to create a philosophy and plan how they want to lead. If you make time, and inspire those that work for you, the rewards are significant as it unlocks employees’ discretionary energy.

Have you got time?

Realigning “doing” with core purpose enables you to build reinforcing habits that have greater impact – not having time is an empty excuse.

At the same time, without the opportunity to share their goals and the things which are important to them, employees that work for you simply lack motivation and creativity and perhaps connection to how they can integrate what they care about into the job that they do. Effective leaders help their people to achieve a common goal by simultaneously helping them realize their own potential.

“As a leader, you must believe in your heart that the people who work with you are truly in it for something bigger than themselves. Then you must be able to communicate in a way that respects their desire to make a difference.”

Simon Sinek¹⁵

Perhaps one defining character of organizations with sustainable performance will be the meaning and clarity of the shared purpose.¹⁶