Using purpose to navigate through change

When change and turbulence show up in your day-to-day life and disrupt things, particularly at work, it can often be an unsettling experience. Working out how you might be able to navigate the situation and achieve a good outcome can be even more of a challenge to visualize. Thinking about how you might identify and leverage the positives, make the most out of new circumstances and ultimately put yourself in an even better position, may seem like a big stretch.

Looking for the good from a seemingly adverse position doesn’t come easily to a lot of people, especially if you have not been proactively planning ahead and change has been either thrust upon you or you just feel like you need to make a change for yourself, sometimes quickly, into unfamiliar territory.

What’s important to you?

How do you know that you are going to make the right choice? It can all seem overwhelming and some people are very worried about making the situation worse by making choices that, in the end, may not work out for them as well as they’d hoped. So, what can you do to mitigate this risk and achieve what you want? The reality is, we all have choices, even though it might not seem like it at the time if change has been thrust upon you unexpectedly. Let’s think about the role of purpose and how it may help you make the right decisions for yourself and help you be comfortable with the choices that you make. If you find yourself having to move on from the organization where you work, purpose can play a key part in helping you to shape your strategy and evaluate the opportunities that might exist.

Workers at all levels can look to Gen Z to provide some insight into the role that purpose plays in deciding which career to follow and which organization to join. There are certain characteristics that people find inspiring and compelling when deciding whether to join a company. They vary from individual to individual because as we are not all the same, what is important for one person might not feature at all for someone else. However, the principle of what fulfilling what REALLY matters to someone (i.e. aligns with their purpose) is a constant piece of relevant decision making criteria.

So, to Gen Z. Recent stats as reported in agency research uncovered 83% of Gen Z actively consider a company’s purpose when deciding where to work, and for our Millennial colleagues in the workforce, 84% value ‘meaning’ as their top priority in their work. The key point here is that an emotional connection between company and potential worker needs to be established, striking the right chord with a person’s core and reason for being. There’s no better way to ensure an appropriate and meaningful ‘match’ if someone’s individual purpose and values are reflected by an authentic company culture that this is evident every day at the organization, lived from the ‘inside-out’ by its people.

Events of recent years have caused many people to reflect, re-think and refocus on what their future could look like and what adjustments they will need to make in their life and work, to make it a reality. As businesses also look to the future and seek efficiencies and adjustments to ways of working, a turbulent backdrop is once again taking centre stage and business change is prevalent.

The impact on individual employees may mean that some people will find themselves unexpectedly unemployed and therefore needing to pivot quickly to think about what to do next. Common questions that job seekers typically have at first include; What options might exist and which ones are worthy of consideration? How do I know that X company is the right company and job for me? Will it be what I want, or will it all be a big mistake?

Additionally, following the pandemic period, many issues around wellbeing and mental health issues have come to the fore which has led to people re-think their core drivers. What is it they truly believe in? What they really want to do? Who they aspire to be? And even What impact do they want to make? It has led people to check back in with their beliefs and to change their expectations around their career.

To answer these questions and gain sufficient insight to inform decision making requires careful thought. Integral to this process, is people uncovering and defining their personal purpose, to understand how they can achieve the impact they want to make and consider what is important to them in their life and work. Purpose does not necessarily need to be one neat contained ‘thing’, it can simply be a focused way of living and working that reflects the PurposeFused formula for purpose. Which is: Passion; What are you passionate about, enjoy, excel at and believe in? Impact; What meaningful difference do you want to make in the world, be remembered for, the legacy that you want to leave? And Application; How is what you do in your typical day aligned to your passions and impact?

In the context of making a career decision, what will give you the most realistic change of satisfying as many of your aspirations as you can? The more requirements you can meet, the more likely it is that your resulting job move will feel rewarding, energizing and meaningful…because it is ‘on purpose’. Without this something will be missing, you will go through the motions, no doubt delivering as an effective worker but will you really be fulfilled? Or will it be a missed opportunity to engage with your purpose to build the future you want authentically and enthusiastically?

Companies have to offer employees a meaningful role to play in delivering the impact they want to deliver, through their job role. By ensuring that organizational objectives are fused with impact and go beyond profit employers are more likely to attract likeminded people to the company. Employees want to work for purpose-driven organizations and purpose driven authentic leaders that bear a close resemblance to their own; one that strives to make a difference and lives its purpose through its people, every day, day in, day out.

To reflect and re-focus on your purpose and understand what you are passionate about, the impact you want to make in the world and how you can apply yourself to achieve this, will strongly affect your decision making. By working in a role and organization that you are truly invested in, and one where you can live your purpose, it would not be unusual for your engagement, performance and impact to increase.

If you’d like to learn more about how to discover, articulate and embed your purpose to guide your decisions, please get in touch.