Purpose Meets Execution

How Winning Organizations Accelerate Engagement and Drive Profits

Louis Efron

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781032717999
• eBook ISBN: 9781351690010
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Business today is up against a myriad of complexities -- disruptive competition and technologies, volatile economic forces, and a complex and evolving work force. There is unending pressure to do more with less, deliver short-term goals while driving long-term sustainability, all while finding and retaining the top talent to get it done.

Part I
Building an Unshakable Foundation

Chapter 1
Starting with Purpose

All great organizations are built on a meaningful purpose.

—Louis Efron

Everything starts with a purpose—in your personal life and in business. As a foundational idea, purpose has strong roots in religion, is a buzzword in personal development, and is becoming the dominant theme in business today. Despite this, few people have read a definition of the word. Let’s begin by reviewing and understanding its specific meaning as a baseline to the platform of Purpose Meets Execution.

There are three clear definitions of purpose I like to use:

• The Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition: “The reason for which something is done or used: the aim or intention of something.”¹
• Aristotle’s definition: “Where your talents and the needs of the world cross.”²
• The accepted definition in the purpose movement: “The reason your organization/industry exists. Your why.”

The first definition generally defines purpose. The second one applies to you, an individual, specifically: how you will change the world by being the person you were intended to be—fulfilling your personal purpose. The third definition addresses how an organization is trying to change the world—why it started in the first place.

The way the last two definitions work together is key to accelerating people engagement in your organization. Imagine if every person from your receptionist to your CEO jumped out of bed each morning excited to start work. They couldn’t wait to tackle the day because they believed they were fulfilling their personal purpose, a purpose aligned with the job and organization they work in. Imagine the power that would create for your organization, your community, and the economy as a whole.

Take the following story as an example.³

In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy was touring the NASA space center. As he was walking the facility, he saw a janitor highly engaged in sweeping the floor. JFK approached the man and asked him what he did at NASA. The janitor stopped what he was doing, looked Kennedy in the eyes, and said, “Well, Mr. President. I’m helping put a man on the moon.”

How great would it be if every person in your business felt like this janitor? How would productivity improve? Work quality? Commitment? Retention? Sales? Profits? Thirty years of research say that kind of inspired commitment would have a significant positive impact on your organization’s business results.

People like NASA’s janitor are not complaining about their company or job. They are not asking for more money if they are being paid a fair wage. They are spending their time trying to figure out how to do better work, add more value, and help fulfill their organization’s purpose. In fact, in Daniel Pink’s book Drive, he concludes that as long as people feel they are being compensated adequately and fairly, compensation is a low factor in engagement.⁴ More important to people motivation—in all areas of our lives—is the human need “to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world,” Pink says.

In his book, Pink highlighted a 1969 study by Edward Deci, then a Carnegie Mellon University psychology graduate student, that determined, “When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity.” The controversial study incentivized students with money to solve puzzles. Those who were paid for their work showed less interest in the activity and spent less time trying to complete the task. Pink asserts that the traditional carrot-and-stick management approach of external rewards like money can be damaging to people engagement in several ways, including: extinguishing intrinsic motivation, diminishing performance, crushing creativity, crowding out good behavior, encouraging cheating or unethical behavior, becoming addictive, or fostering short-term thinking. In all cases, personal meaning trumps external drivers when it comes to people engagement and performance.

The ROI of Purpose

There are still skeptics when it comes to living a purpose-driven life or leading a purpose-focused business. Some think it is a soft and fluffy concept—one perhaps reserved for religious zealots. However, in business, as in life, the ROI has proven strong. On the organizational front, research studies in the book Firms of Endearment, by Rajendra Sisodia, David B. Wolfe, and Jagdish N. Sheth, determined the following:

• Corporate purpose is the single most powerful tool for growing an organization’s top and bottom lines.
• Purpose-driven companies grew their businesses 1,681 percent between 1998 and 2013 compared with the Standard and Poor’s 500, which averaged 118 percent during that period.

Some of the most recognized brands, including Ikea, Costco, IDEO, Whole Foods, and Commerce Bank, were included in the study. The results were matched only by a similar study a few years earlier. In every case, organizations that chose to focus on purpose over profits achieved accelerated business results—proving that purpose truly matters to an organization’s growth, success, and sustainability.

A 2013 Deloitte study titled Culture of Purpose: A Business Imperative makes this point: “What companies do for clients, people, communities, and society are all interconnected. A culture of purpose ensures that management and employees alike see each as a reason to go to work every day.”⁵

Deloitte’s study also concludes that companies that have a strong sense of purpose as perceived by their employees also have a history of strong financial performance, high employee engagement, and satisfied customers. In companies where employees said their organization lacked a strong sense of purpose, financial performance, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction were significantly lower.

More Than a Buggy Whip

An organizational purpose is timeless. Products and strategies may change, but a purpose does not. I was once asked about the purpose of a buggy whip company from time gone by. Was it not to produce the best buggy whips in the world? My response was a resounding, “No!”

From my perspective, the purpose of a buggy whip company was to get a customer from point A to point B—from home to work and back again, to a holiday in the country, to visit a friend or relative, or to deliver goods to customers. Wherever someone may want to go, a buggy whip company would provide a tool—in the original case, a horsewhip—to help people arrive at their destinations. The purpose—and its focus—is timeless. It transcends buggies and would be preserved when electric cars first appeared on the roads in the late 1800s, when mass market gasoline vehicles arrived soon after, and when electric cars came back in the 2000s—and it would continue when fully autonomous hover crafts appear in 2050 and teleporting devices in 2075. The products and strategies may change, but the purpose remains constant—to get someone to a destination. Unfortunately, most buggy whip companies did not embrace such an overreaching purpose and died with the advent of automobiles.

A good organizational purpose statement captures the reason your business was started in the first place in a succinct, timeless, and undeniable way. For example, the auto industry’s purpose is “to keep the world moving.” Like the buggy whip company example, this purpose covers all forms of transportation that may ever be dreamt up. The banking industry’s purpose is “to improve life for people, families, organizations, and communities through financial services.” Again, this purpose would encompass an economy backed by gold bars or bitcoins. Its purpose is timeless, and the pursuit of fulfilling it continues from generation to generation. It is sustainable.

If the purpose of your organization has a shelf life or specific period of time connected to it, you most likely have it wrong. Start thinking more broadly. Connect your idea to a higher plane. If you are going to invest the time, money, and energy to start a business or industry, you want it to survive you and grow well into the future. A business should never fail because it is trying to fulfill the wrong purpose. If it does, it is fundamentally broken to begin with. A strong and undeniable purpose should be core to your organization’s DNA—the foundation from day one. This is the foundation your execution will build upon.

People working for your company and customers should know and understand how your organization contributes to the world and believe its existence is necessary.

Walmart is a great example. Twenty-four hours a day, the company goes about its business “to save people money so they can live better.”⁶ Everything it does supports that purpose.

The company’s corporate office is functional but lacking in costly bells or whistles. All the employees, including executives, empty their own trash bins. Stores resemble warehouses with just what is needed to hold products for sale. Fancy trimmings or extra amenities are simply not part of Walmart’s formula.

Because Walmart’s purpose and supporting culture is clear and undeniable, both customers and job candidates know exactly what to expect coming in the door. This expectation helps drive the right customers and people to the organization. If you like high-end retail shopping, you won’t go to Walmart. If you like working in a posh environment and having someone else empty your trash, you won’t apply to Walmart. If you are not passionate about saving money, Walmart won’t be the best fit for you, and your success at the company will be limited.

Creating proper alignment with employees starts with Walmart’s recruiting. If people come in the door and are personally cost-conscious and frugal, they will remain that way through their careers at the company. If they truly care about saving money, they will work hard to ensure it happens at the organization and for its customers. They will believe what the organization believes. This will translate into an honest and personal connection with Walmart’s purpose and a sincere interest in helping fulfill it. Fulfilling the retail giant’s purpose means selling more products to more people, becoming more profitable, and continuing the cycle.

To achieve the clarity of purpose that Walmart has, your organization’s purpose communication should do three things:

1. Provide a clear reason for why your organization exists.
   • This should be clear, public, and undeniable to anyone connected with your business from the inside or outside—employees, customers, vendors, shareholders, and investors.
   • It should start with a CEO or founder and cascade down to the front lines of your business with sincere confirmation at every level.
2. Ensure that all stakeholders understand the purpose of your organization.
   • In an ideal world, everyone connected to your business—employees, contractors, vendors, customers, shareholders, and investors—would be able to recite your purpose statement verbatim.
3. Ensure all stakeholders believe in and are passionate about the purpose of your organization.
   • In an ideal world, everyone connected to your business—employees, contractors, vendors, customers, shareholders, and investors—would actively speak about, promote, and get others excited about helping to fulfill your organization’s purpose.

Success Begins with Alignment

If you want to fulfill your organization’s purpose, you must surround yourself with people who believe what you believe. Not people who think like you, necessarily, but people who share your organization’s common purpose and interests.

In Arizona, there is a storm chaser who works for a local news channel. In a recent advertisement, he said that when there is a storm kicking up, he can’t not go—whether he is working or not. “No matter what is going on in my life, there is nothing I’d rather be doing,” he admits. He loves chasing storms and can’t help himself. He finds the work intoxicating. He considers himself on duty 24/7. His job is his life, and his life is his job. There is a clear alignment of purpose.

It would be unrealistic to expect all employees in your business to feel the way this storm chaser does about the work they do. The storm chaser is the ultimate example of life alignment. But the truth is that, if you can hire people who truly enjoy what they do so much that they would do it in their free time, you’ll be finding a better match.

In most cases, those who work for charities are people with a strong purpose alignment. For example, if someone who loves animals works at a charity for animal well-being, she is more likely to focus on that area of life on and off the job. In 2012, I founded World Child Cancer USA to help children with cancer in the developing world. In 2014, I turned the chairman role over to Scott Howard, MD, a renowned child oncologist. He has dedicated his personal and professional life to treating and saving the lives of children with cancer. Because of his efforts and leadership, the charity has helped thousands of children around the world. Again, there is a perfect alignment between his own purpose and that of the charity. Despite this, it is important to note that a 100 percent alignment is rare and not always healthy. In these cases, it works. In others, such commitment can lead to burnout or regret later in life. Balance is key.

The storm chaser sees his life’s purpose as chasing storms and sharing their power and beauty with others through pictures and video. He works for a news channel that shares his purpose of reporting on such weather conditions. There is ideal alignment. Like Howard, his engagement and contributions to his employer could not be greater. Simply put, he cares deeply about what he does, and the results are apparent.

The following six questions—and their answers—can help managers and organizations get a better understanding of who a candidate is and how good a fit that person may be for the role and within the team. These are questions you can use on online applications or, even better, in face-to-face interviews to gauge the personality and purpose of a new candidate. The questions have been designed to elicit unique and creative answers, ones that are more genuine and unprepared. Use them to get to know the person—and purpose—behind the resume.

Even if you don’t ask any of these questions, I encourage you to ask things that are outside the normal scope of interview questions. Canned and expected questions will get you canned and prepared answers. You want and need to know more to ensure a better fit for y...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I Building an Unshakable Foundation
• Part II Creating One Team
• Part III Realizing a Winning Culture
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author