Purpose is an easy concept to live with, but not to explain. It is one of the pivotal organisational elements, if not the most important, because it represents the Source. For years, we at Peoplerise have been carrying out an international research project that aims to generate and update the concept of evolutionary purpose. A major part of this project has been the biographical investigation of the organisations’ life – just as any other living being’s life. Fortunately, the need for this kind of work has been increasing in companies in recent times.
This article stems from several in-depth dialogues, shared in our workshops too, with a dear friend and client of ours. We asked Guido Menegatti, HR Training Manager at Credem Banca, to write this article to help us answer the question: ‘what is purpose, really?’
Before starting Guido’s examination, we would like to thank him sincerely for this new gift (here you can find his previous article on ‘leadership hats’): it is always a pleasure to share reflections and inspirations with him.
Purpose as an organisational pillar
Teal organisations (Laloux, F. ‘ Reinventing Organisations’) act and structure themselves on the basis of three fundamental pillars:
- Purpose
- Wholeness
- Self-organisation
Although all three pillars have their own definition and complexity, undoubtedly purpose is the most fascinating and the least immediately comprehensible. That is probably because purpose acts on an inner and profound dimension that is easy to feel, if not to understand. At the same time, this dimension is difficult to fully express.
Self-organisation and wholeness are mostly self-explanatory, because they lead back to unambiguous dimensions: self-organisation is a univocal term, just as wholeness has its own clear definition. The same definition for everybody. Purpose does not. Every organisation has its own purpose, even every person.
Almost any intention can be a purpose, and this makes purpose itself a dimension that eludes a single definition, a single meaning. It is precisely this peculiarity that makes it so fascinating, powerful and also difficult to handle.
We can try to simplify the meaning of purpose because, although it seems like a very abstract dimension, it is actually extremely concrete for each of us. We are just not always aware of it.
Difference between purpose, mission, vision and values
Let’s start from the beginning: from the vocabulary. If you look at the dictionary, under ‘purpose’, you will read as an explanation: ‘purpose, the purpose for which something exists’.
In corporate literature there are several things that resemble purpose: mission, vision, values… do we really need purpose as well? Yes, because purpose has elements in common with the dimensions described, but also its own specificity of meaning.
In order to shed some light on it, rather than looking for answers straight away, we could start with a serie of questions.
Because each of the dimensions described answers a specific question.
The mission question is:
What? It has an operational vocation. It is the guide that shows us what we want to achieve. For example, ‘To be the best in our market segment’.
On the other hand, the vision is more strategic. Its question is:
In what way, with what field choices? It tells us how the mission will be achieved. For example ‘With innovative products and a careful choice of customers: we want to be for many, but not for all’.
What about values? They answer the question:
How, with what behaviour? For example, we could answer: ‘With competence, attention to the customer and closeness to their needs’. This will orient our way of operating according to these guidelines.
It all sounds self-consistent already, but in reality it is not. At least not completely.
It is not self-consistent because one question is missing, the most important of all. The one that points to the purpose:
- Why? Laloux, in his fundamental text on Teal organisations, gave a poetic interpretation of purpose: ‘purpose is why a company exists, the distinctive mark it wants to leave on the world’.
On a more practical level, we can say that purpose is linked to all the dimensions we have described, but its specific question is directly linked to the mission.
So, in our example, ‘Why be the best in our market segment?’
It is evident that there can be no single answer. Take for example a credit company, a bank. You may want to be ‘the best in your market segment’ for many different reasons. To make money for all the shareholders of the company? Do you aim to have the means to support small businesses in the area where you operate? To finance start-ups in that segment? Is it desired to distribute value to the community? Many other examples could be given.
photo by nathan jennings from unsplash
Purpose explains why a company exists
In short, why? That why is the purpose. When it is shared by the people who belong to an organisation, it constitutes a powerful engine of belonging and motivation. It constitutes much more than a common achievement. It represents a common ‘ideal’ that helps you recognise yourself in others and makes you distinguishable from others who are different from you.
A shared mission is something to work for together. A shared purpose is something to believe in together. It brings together people who believe in the same vision.
‘To be the best in our market segment’. If the purpose is ‘To win over everyone else’, this will attract a certain type of people. If the purpose is ‘To support start-ups’, it will attract different people. Not better or worse, just different, driven by different motivations which will be pursued with different behaviours. Having a well-defined purpose will attract people who believe in and recognise themselves in that purpose, and who will strive to fulfill it. At the same time, it will alienate those who identify with a different purpose. This is positive, because the organisation will become more credible, coherent, effective and efficient in relation to its own aims.
Similar missions may have different purposes
If the organisation’s mission is ‘To be the best in our market segment’ and its purpose is ‘To win over everyone else’ (and what has been just explained is true), if you ask someone who works in that organisation what they do, that person will answer ‘I strive to stay ahead of all my competitors’. However, if you ask another person who works in a company with the same mission, but with a purpose such as ‘To support start-ups’, they will answer ‘I find solutions to launch innovative start-ups’.
Two very different answers, corresponding to people who live and think differently about themselves and their work. However, if they work in a bank and you ask them ‘How do you do this?’ both might answer in the same way: ‘By proposing financial products adapted to customers’ needs’. Purpose gives meaning to what you do beyond what you do. Giving meaning means giving a reason. It means giving motivation. And nothing motivates like a purpose.
Every person has a purpose
Not only companies have a purpose. Every single person has it, whether they are aware of it or not. Let’s keep it simple and get back to the practical, straightforward questions.
If I asked you: ‘Why do you get up in the morning and go to work?’ you could give many answers.
For example: ‘Because I need to work, to support myself and (if I have) my family’. ‘I wish to have a decent standard of living for myself and my loved ones’. ‘To give my children a future’. Or as they used to say, ‘To have a place in society’.
Of course, for each of us the answer to ‘Why do you get up in the morning and go to work?’ includes all of these answers and no one is questioning them. But assuming that you have a certain margin of choice (and on this side of the world right now, by the very fact that you are reading this article, you have it), there will be more to these answers.
In fact, given equal economic returns, you would not do any job. Perhaps you would not do another job even for higher financial rewards, at least to a certain extent.
Similarly, perhaps you would not do the same job you are doing in any other company.
What does this tell us?
That you have internal motivations, that you want to express something of yourself through your work. That you are not satisfied with the question ‘What?’, whereas you seek an answer to the question ‘Why?’. You too have a purpose. You too want to leave a mark in the world. Maybe your purpose is about making important decisions. Maybe it’s about getting everyone on the same page or being someone everyone can count on. Or having an idea that no one else ever had. Or anything else.
When you work, consciously or unconsciously, you are trying to fulfil this purpose of yours. Do you know what your purpose is? If you know it, pursue it. If you don’t know it, try to find it out. Indeed, if you work in an environment that makes it easy for you to fulfil your purpose, you will be motivated and satisfied and you will be able to cope with difficulties. Otherwise, even with good ‘material’ conditions, you will always lack something.
Connection between organisational and individual purpose
It becomes clear how creating a connection between individual purpose and organisational purpose is a condition that allows high level performance combined with a high personal well-being and sense of belonging. These two aspects, personal well-being and sense of belonging, are what we all seek in our professional lives.
‘To be the best in our market segment’ is a mission that belongs to almost everyone who works with passion, commitment and the will to achieve results.
However, if you interpret this mission as ‘Supporting start-ups’, you will end up suffering in a company that sees this mission as ‘Outperforming all competitors’, and vice versa. Everyone should look for a company that allows them to work towards their personal purpose, because sharing a purpose gives meaning to our work.
Companies, on the other hand, should be more honest and courageous in declaring their purpose. They should commit to hiring, growing and developing people who share it. They shall not accept the compromises and half-measures we have witnessed for far too long.
The purpose requires consistency. It is everyone’s responsibility to try to pursue it by filling the gap between what is stated and what is practised.
It is the company’s responsibility, but also yours. Because the company is many people like you.
HR Training Manager | Credem Banca
