One more time. What makes a purpose-driven organization? And how do you know if you have one? The glasses are a little
much, aren't they? Let's talk about purpose. Specifically let's talk about being a purpose-driven organization. I mean, we know, we've known
this for probably 20 years. We've believed the researchers for maybe the last five to ten. That purpose-driven organizations outperform their competitors; they outperform the industry. That people want a sense
of meaning from their work, that people wanna derive
a sense of true value that they're creating. People want a sense of purpose, and they want it for more than
just their personal lives. They want it as work as well. And so a lot of
organizations have responded by trying to migrate their organization to a truly purpose-driven organization. But I thought it'd be
helpful to talk about what a purpose-driven organization is not, so that we can get an idea of what makes a truly purpose-driven organization. So today I wanna share four misconceptions about purpose-driven organizations. Things that would make employees
feel a sense of purpose, but may not work out the way that we hope. The first, we should talk
about these sunglasses. The first misconception is that a purpose-driven organization
sort of equals CSR: Corporate social responsibility. And no one would say this outright. No one would just say, "oh, well if we just
give a certain percentage to social causes, we suddenly become a purpose-driven organization." But if you look at the way organizations talk about what they do in terms of CSR, or you could just call
them what they are often; PR campaigns. If you look at what they do, they really are trying to say that we do good business by doing good. You don't; you just give
a certain percentage of your profits to good causes. Your business model may
actually be in contrast to some of those causes. Now, in contrast, there are organizations whose business models, the entire purpose
around their organization is in and of itself
almost a form of corporate social responsibility. One of my favorite examples
is a Vancouver-based company named Pela. They made these sunglasses,
among other things. They actually started as a company that makes cell phone cases. And the difference is, they
make things out of plastic that aren't plastic. In fact, they're made from
pure organic materials. They found out how to take
waste products from farming and turn them into a moldable plastic, and have now been making products that are often highly disposable
like cell phone cases, like sunglasses where
you forget where they are at the end of the summer. And they found a way
to make them biodegrade if they're composted within 10 years. Think about it; you get a new cell phone, you switch out cases, it sits in a landfill for 10000 years. You get a Pela case, by the way, and it'll biodegrade in
10 if you compost it. That's not corporate
social responsibility; that's true purpose. If you ask anyone inside of Pela, what are you working for? They'll tell you the same thing. "We're working for a waste-free future." But it's also not just about what people are working for in
terms of a mission statement. That's actually the second misconception. Your purpose as an organization is bigger than your mission statement. You know what, and I've
talked about this before. Mission statements are actually
a relatively terrible way to convey a sense of purpose to employees because we have a very
one-and-done mentality around them. We send off the senior leaders, we send off a cross section of employees to some off-site where we
pay a consultant $20,000 to come up with a glass plaque. By the way, if you wanna pay me $20,000 to come up with your
glass plaque, I'll do it. I've run workshops on how
to discover purpose before. But I won't let you stop
at a mission statement. Because I know that a
mission statement alone, it's gonna get put on the 10-K, the plaque is gonna get put in the hallway of the organization or like the very front in the entranceway, and it's promptly gonna be forgotten. My proof of this, actually,
is the Hershey organization in a little bit different way. Hershey, as an organization, once had a terrible mission statement. They changed it, thankfully. But for a time, their
mission statement was: "Undisputed marketplace leadership." That was it. That was what they put in the 10-K, and yeah, that might've
helped inspire shareholders and that sort of thing, but it was pretty terrible. But after getting
ridiculed, they changed it. But nothing really changed
when they changed it. Why? Because Hershey Foods as,
an organization's, purpose is actually bigger than that. If you look on the back of
pretty much any Hershey bar, you're gonna see the same thing. You're gonna see something
about the Milton Hershey School. The Milton Hershey School
is a school for orphans; biological or societal orphans
all funded, by the way, not from some CSR campaign from Hershey, not because they give a certain
percentage of their profits, but because the school
actually owns Hershey Foods. The school, the trust
that funds the schools, is the majority shareholder
of Hershey Foods. And so they could write whatever mission statement they want, but the employees, especially the employees
in the home office, see the school across the way. It's in the same town; it's
virtually across the street. They see that, they see the purpose. Sure can build a lot with a
bar of chocolate, can't you? And the Hershey business model
is great, it's fantastic. But it leads us to really
the third misconception about purpose and being a
purpose-driven organization. We know that it's not just CSR, we know that it's bigger
than your mission statement, but it's also not necessarily
your business model. You can give employees a sense of purpose through a variety of different causes that you are working for. We know Alcoa, for example, they're the people that
literally invented tin foil. And I apologize, the tin
foil is really messing with the lighting that I have rigged up. Sorry about that. When Alcoa, in the late 80's and through the entire of the 1990's was trying to turn the company around. Paul O' Neil, the CEO,
the newly crowned CEO in charge of the organization chose to make the purpose, not shareholder value because
they were owned by a trust like in the Hershey organization, but chose to make the
purpose about safety. He declared that as a
manufacturing organization, they were gonna become
a zero accident company. Never been heard of in any manufacturing, let alone something
like aluminum smelting. But he decided that that was their cause, that was their purpose. That was what employees internalized. The sense that we're all in this together, and if people are getting injured, then we are failing our
brothers and sisters. So let's pursue becoming
a zero accident company. Now, non-ironically, a
lot of good things happen by that same purpose that really
helped the business model. I mean, how do you make a factory safer? You study the entire process, and you make efficiencies. What happens when a factory is safer, it is able to run at higher rates because you don't have to stop the line every time there's an accident. So there are a variety
of business benefits to that newfound sense of purpose, but it wasn't anything
necessarily changing in the business model. It was driving people
through a sense of purpose that was external to the business model, that was about taking care of each other, and in the end, provided
a much better return on investment for all of
the shareholders anyway. In the end, proved that
they could continue to operate in that business model. But the purpose had nothing
to do with business. The purpose had to do with safety, and taking care of our
brothers and sisters. Speaking of one more organization that is focused on taking care
of our brothers and sisters, it's The WD-40 Company. They make, I don't know if
you ever use this, WD-40. The WD-40 Company is a great example of the fourth and final
misconception about purpose. Which is that it's not
necessarily what you sell. Yeah, it's great if you
can come up with a product or service that is entirely waste-free and make your purpose that. But in the case of WD-40,
I mean, they sell oil. It's a lubricant. They literally just sell an oil that makes stuff not squeak. But led by CEO Garry Ridge, WD-40 has been incredibly passionate about their purpose being each other. They literally use the term "tribe," and there are stories and artifacts about taking care of the tribe all over pretty much any office headquarters. If you ask people at WD-40, what are you working for? They're not trying to
get more oil in the world to make door hinges less squeaky. That's just a really
really strong side benefit. But it's not what they're working for. What they're working
for is to provide people with an organization
that lets them thrive, that is supportive of them, an organization that is focused on us and taking care of each
other, no matter what we sell. We just happen to sell WD-40. So how do you know when you actually are one of these
purpose-driven organizations? How do you know when employees actually do feel a sense of
purpose that inspires them and motivates them everyday? Versus a mission
statement that sounds good when you read it in the 10-K, but nobody even remembers. Or versus a business model
that's actually at odds with what your CSR/PR campaigns say is the good that you provide in the world. How do you know? Well, for most leaders,
I think there's actually a simple test that you can give. Do your people have a
clear and concise answer to the question: "What
are we fighting for?" "What are we fighting for?" What in the world are we working towards that will provide a better future? Or working against because
if we don't solve it, it'll be a less bright future. Not "Who are we fighting?" "Who are we fighting?" for is
a question about competitors, and that actually very
rarely motivates employees. "What are we fighting for?" What is our reason for existing, and what is that thing we decided, by existing and continuing
to do business, to take on? If your people can clearly and concisely answer that question,
what are you fighting for? Then you have the seed bed, if not the entirety of a
purpose-driven organization. And if you don't, there's
probably one of these misconceptions that
you're still believing. We'll see ya next time.