Written by Amit Zala, Co-Founder at Fieldwork
Why am I adding yet another article to the ‘purpose’ pile? Because, working in the Purpose Industry, I am worried that a lot of people are missing the point entirely.
So called ‘purpose statements’ are being rolled out by lead teams, marketeers and PR agencies across the land as the next buzz words designed to eek out a drop more commitment from their people … deep down you know that won't work, right?
But before you let the power of purpose pass you by, here are some words on how to do it well and reap the rewards for everyone.
We have all been there, that painstaking feeling that the business we founded or work in is just not where we want it to be. We can see the potential. We can smell it, touch it and taste it. But for some reason no one can put this potential into words. No one can make it feel tangible and achievable.
So we try. We get our best creative minds together and we come up with feel good, trendy, statements that are nice to look at and suit our branding. Time, money and energy are poured into creating purpose, mission, vision, values statements that rarely provide a return on investment.
At best inert, at worst divisive, these statements can leave the employee community feeling disconnected due to their lack of involvement in their creation. Seemingly positive and powerful statements, if not brought to life and used to their full potential, can serve as a constant reminder of an ambition the organisation is not living up to and create a palpable sense that nothing here is true.
Each business that created guidance statements (and didn't use them) missed an opportunity to step towards the future that everyone wanted. As specialists working in this field we know that it’s not a lack of genuine desire for transformation that thwarts the leader’s efforts. It's actually just the lack of knowing a better way.
The solution is found when businesses learn-by-doing, to discover, land and use their Purpose, with a capital ‘P’, to evolve beyond the conventional.
At Fieldwork we spend our time supporting organisations who are embarking on doing exactly that. This is the first piece in a series that we hope will capture what we’ve learned on the journey of helping businesses and organisations use Purpose as a transformation tool that evolves the business to its next level.
What is Purpose?
Purpose
/ˈpəːpəs/
noun
the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.
[Oxford English Dictionary]
“But hold on!” I hear you cry “If this is the definition of purpose, the purpose of my business is simple ... To make money!”
However at Fieldwork we would always challenge this. When the majority of businesses started, the founders almost always held a strong desire or passion for whatever opportunity they had identified, whatever service or skill the world needed that they had to offer. It was this passion or desire that lit the founding fires of their business and it was from these beginnings that the initial creativity and energy of the business emerged. It is in these fires that we find some of the vital pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that help bring Purpose to life.
Purpose can be found in the sweet spot between these puzzle pieces that so clearly indicate what you love doing, what you’re good at, what the world needs and what you can be paid for.
The Japanese refer to this sweet spot as ‘Ikigai’ meaning ‘a reason for being’. It alludes to the value in contributing and making work worthwhile.
Ikigai reminds us that some of these pieces are present in any business, lying dormant and waiting to be brought to life.
Purpose In Action
Here are 3 simple things Purpose can be in the service of transforming your business:
ONE: A Tool that Transforms your Current Culture to a Culture of Innovation (and makes people happier)
There’s nothing worse than the daily walk past the statements on the wall. The daily reminder of where you know the business could be headed. This doesn’t transform culture and make people happy. Quite the opposite.
However, when Purpose is found deep within the origins of the organisation, surfaced and shared with the whole organisation with care and diligence, then immediately everyone feels connected to it and clear on how they can contribute to bringing it successfully to life.
So how does bringing Purpose to life link to transforming company culture?
One key aspect is that it enables you to bring focus to areas that need more attention.
To illustrate this we’ll use the example of a client we’ve been working with for the past few years. One of the reasons we’ve always enjoyed working with them is that they are young, vibrant, fun, engaging and innovative. These attributes make them unique and attractive to work for and successful to work with, but from their position inside the business it's not so easy to see this.
In completing the work required to rediscover their Purpose and bring it to life, it helped them see how engaging they were internally and how that impacted on their clients and their work.
Seeing this helped them bring attention or focus to this area, and leverage it internally. They asked themselves questions like ‘How do we stay fun and engaging?’ and ‘How do we celebrate this internally?’ and ‘How do we find more people like us?’ and ‘How to harness and grow our innovative capacity?’
These questions, guided by their Purpose, helped them to identify and develop ideas for internal training, workshops and celebrations that keep their culture vibrant and enjoyable. They also identified fun and engaging ways to attract, vet and onboard people into the business who were a cultural fit. And most importantly they have harnessed their innovative capacity and through this created an amazing new brand, look, feel as well as a new service offering that makes them stand out in a crowded marketplace.
By far the biggest impact of an engaging culture is access to greater levels of innovation. When people in the business feel loyal, inspired and included they find new and more effective ways of connecting and communicating. This leads on to finding more effective and efficient ways to work in teams in regard to creativity and innovation. Quicker innovative outputs with much more strategic depth and a clear relationship to Purpose mean that the business overall is resourced to respond rapidly to change, an impact that is vital in the current business climate.
This kind of impact is the outcome of a transformation journey towards being a Purpose driven business, and it leaves the business with a competitive edge that most only dream of.
TWO: A Business Guidance Tool (that’s actually useful)
The annoying thing about a Purpose statement that’s written on the wall is that it probably won’t physically jump off the wall and start telling people what to do and how to lead the business. However, in reality every level in the business can genuinely use Purpose to guide its decisions and actions.
We’ve seen people use Purpose to great effect on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis. For example, the question ‘Does this proposal fit with our Purpose?’ helps keeps the organisation true and on course.
Let us give you a real life example from a company who we have had the pleasure of working alongside for the past few years as they have diligently completed the work required to fully rediscover, embed and utilise their Purpose. After a challenging attempt to expand into the USA, they started looking at the opportunity to do the same in Asia, which was surfacing a lot of tension in the business.
When they brought the whole business together and probed into this tension, it emerged that the expansion strategy was not actually grounded in the Purpose of the business but in an implicit pressure to compete, particularly in terms of size and geographical reach.
When looked at through the lens of Purpose, the business decided to pull back and reorganise its geographical growth to stay on Purpose and stay true to what the business was sensing was the next step. In simple terms, this involved spending quality time in consolidating their position, which they have now successfully done.
THREE: A Talent Attraction (and retention) Tool
There’s a common aspersion that is cast upon Millenials (and maybe Generation Z) that they’re work shy and they don’t stick around in a business very long because they get bored quickly.
In my experience this sentiment is very unfair.
They are actually really keen to work hard but they are disciplined in only wanting to work for businesses who have a Purpose or Mission and are ideally looking for a business that is helping the world get out of the challenges it currently faces.
What is more, Millenials and Gen Z are acutely tuned into and thoroughly intolerant of BS.
They can smell a rat pretty quickly and if that rat is a BS statement on the wall, a statement that may well have been key in attracting them to the business in the first place, a few months in they realise it is just a statement on the wall that is not being lived and they feel duped. They quit and move on.
So having a founding fire of Purpose that is lived and breathed every day can help you attract the right people but keeping them is another matter entirely. If you’re not using Purpose (see points one and two) then you’ll quickly lose good people.
And it’s not just millennials and Gen Z. We’ve seen so many Gen Xers and Baby Boomers feel the same way. They want to work with young, vibrant people and pass on their skills and wisdom and a well established and maintained Purpose attracts all of these people.
When you live and breathe your Purpose, people talk about you. People want to work for you and nowhere else.