Sorry, Purpose Doesn’t Work. Unless You Do This
Unraveling the enigma of purpose, we often stumble upon the realization that it's not a magic wand. It demands more than mere identification. Let's delve into the intricacies of making purpose work, and the pivotal role you play in this process.
How to realize its promise
Purpose has value only when you use it as a guide and a litmus test for daily decision-making at every level across the span of the organization.
- How does that happen? The patterns across the most successful purpose-driven organizations show three things to be key
Make it Hit Home
To truly have impact, purpose must be ever-present and central to daily decision making at every level of the organization.
- How? An example helps
- Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has for over four decades offered a great one
- Since the company’s start, he has talked about protecting the planet as his priority and created an earth tax to dedicate a percentage of company profits to protecting the natural world
- The real value in the earth tax is mental
- Every time an idea is generated, a decision made, or an action taken, purpose is quite literally part of the calculation
Make it doable
The power in purpose lies in its actual use
- For that to occur, purpose has to be something everyone can touch, understand, and put to use, not in a single moment, but in every moment. If it’s not, it’s soon to wither if not dead on arrival
Co-create It
The most powerful way to make purpose useable, understandable, and accessible is to co-create it.
- Co-creation isn’t just a one-time, upfront thing either. To be impactful, purpose must be owned by everyone.