I was only introduced to the concept of how powerful it is for a company to build its strategy around a Core Purpose that its employees help shape and use to cultivate a bottom up corporate culture. Simon Sinek was my introduction but I have since read a lot around it and, 18 months ago, we sat around a table at Collingwood and asked one another Why we do what we do. From there we have done a lot of collaborative work around our Core Purpose and it is transforming what we do from the team we are building (having the right people on the bus) through to the clients we choose to work with and the caring and passionate value proposition we consistently deliver to them.
Away from revenue and profit, because we know Why we do things, we are now working with the right companies and are very proud of the value we add to them.
Before agreeing our Core Purpose, we evaluated success on revenue and profits which were very impressive but we were a miserable bunch just "doing a job". We are now revitalised, re-energised and go way beyond what is expected by our clients because they are the reason we do what we do.
Great article....
There’s another way. To make decisions based on a sense of corporate purpose. A company’s purpose is its intrinsic reason for existing –to use technology to transform customers’ lives for the better, to nurture and develop its employees, or to preserve the environment for future generations. This contrasts profits, which are an extrinsic goal. Purposeful companies will make an investment simply because it is the right thing to do – because it’s consistent with its mission – rather than because it expects an instrumental payoff. Nice idea, but it sounds totally unrealistic. In the real world, a company needs to make profits to survive – and without profits, you can’t finance investment in the first place. The pursuit of purpose simply distracts you from profit.
