In just our first three weeks, 70% of our conversations have centered on how organizations can use purpose to support their people in being the best version of themselves – as we say, their ultimate selves. It’s quite appropriate given the fantastic McKinsey article that was published on our 5th day of existence which (as a very generous advert for our services) identified the massive gap between people’s needs and their reality, when it comes to living their purpose at work.

Purpose is part of employee wellbeing, building resilience, increasing engagement and certainly in retaining talent. There are many other ‘outcomes’ that come from the authentic and aligned advancement of purpose throughout an organization. But let’s distill this down a bit here. Embedding purpose for your people is also quite simply, the right thing to do! Forget all the corporate speak and complex models. In their simplest form, organizations are organized systems of people working towards common objectives. So, I doubt too many organizational leaders would disagree with the following equation:

better people = better performance

…period !

So, we’re dedicating our first curated insight of the month to the McKinsey article (it’s the least we could do, really), under our theme “Living Purpose at Work”.

Living with Purpose at Work:

I’ve had a burning desire for some time to disrupt what I call the ‘“Purpose Paradigm” – that is, purpose sitting as a tick the box marketing exercise, or fad, to artificially demonstrate a brand trying to do good in the world. Don’t get me wrong, purpose should be a core, if not fundamental component of the marketing mix (just another P to add to the mix). However, in order for a company to claim to be purpose-driven, purpose first and foremost has to be inside-out, starting with it’s people (another P), being modeled by it’s leaders and being evangelized in the world through its products, services and moreover their positive impact on the people they reach. We talk about authenticity, alignment and advancement, as being 3As for purpose to drive performance and impact.

So, imagine my eyes lighting up when I started to read an article dedicated purely to people and purpose at work – our very area of focus. The underlying theme was based around a huge “purpose hierarchy gap” between organizational leaders vs their managers and employees, whereby 85% of the former said they were living their purpose at work, whereas only 15% of the latter said the same. Further 63% of the latter wanted their employer to provide more purposeful opportunities in their day to day work.

Here are some of McKinsey’s insights:

• There are three levels of purpose relevant to organizations in driving employee fulfillment- the organizational purpose, the purpose from work and the individual’s purpose beyond work. The organization can only control the first, but can establish a culture that aligns with the second and encourages the third. The primary objective therefore is to earn the largest intersection between organizational and work purpose – so that an individual garners the most energy, meaning and fulfillment from their work.

• The companies whose employees felt they were getting the purpose they wanted from work, reported material improvements across 11 outcomes from work (6) and life (4), including: energy, satisfaction, engagement, achievement, connection and excitement being among the biggest movers. Better people = Better outcomes = Better performance.

• Organizations can fix the purpose hierarchy gap in three ways:

  • Start with organizational purpose – and ensure you’re embedding it authentically, not just sticking a poster on the wall – that can, in McKinsey’s words be “devastatingly bad”;

  • Reflect, connect, repeat – provide employees and managers meaningful and regular opportunities to reflect on their individual purpose, connect it to their work.

  • Help people live their purpose at work – the most valuable way to do this being embedding components of their individual purpose into their day-to-day work, more than offering ancillary opportunities to serve the community, donate, volunteer, etc (both are good, just the former drives more sustainable performance and impact and gets to the heart of the problem).

When you start a new venture, you have a vision, belief and enough courage (i.e. more than fear) to throw yourself out there and see what happens. We’ve built a brilliant team which provides us with the expertise and confidence to live our purpose. People talk about years of experience – we have loads, but what we have that many don’t is that I’ve known my team-members for a combined 123 years (I’d like to say that’s 3x my age, but I’d be lying). The point is, it gives us incredible cohesion, unconditional trust and the intuition to do the right thing, all grounded in a shared commitment to and passion for, our purpose. So, when I say purpose has to be inside-out and you have to live it to give it (walk the walk) – this is what I mean.

Again, 70% of initial interest in our services has been around our Live with Purpose program that works with individuals at all levels throughout an organization to align their individual purpose with their organizational purpose and work. If you’d like to learn more, please get in touch!