In recent years, experts have touted the importance of a shared purpose in aligning people behind something greater than the profits companies pursue. Purpose is increasing in the minds of millennials, essentially workers under 35. Renowned workplace strategist Jeff Butler says, 78 percent of millennials believe that companies should have a responsibility of helping build a better world. Millennials are all about being a part of an advocacy and contributing to society. Working for a purpose-driven company helps fill their need to be productive members of society. Daniel Goleman, father of Emotional Intelligence conducted a survey in which 63% of millennials—said the primary purpose of businesses should be “improving society” instead of “generating profit."
Purpose matters to workers today. And for the most part when people talk about purpose in business, they mean the greater purpose an enterprise serves beyond profit. Purpose is associated with a company's vision, mission and values. However, in execution, purpose can be leveraged to drive more effective execution as well. How? Purpose creates commitment. People perform at their best when they feel a meaningful connection with their work. The result is beyond compliance with a powerful commitment to achieve shared goals. Developing and sharing a clear and common purpose is an important first step towards effective execution.
Purpose that drives effective execution needs to be clear at three levels; business, team and individual.
Business Level Purpose
Just as purpose beyond profits can serve the overall organization, purpose can also be defined for execution through the purpose a specific project serves. It’s the answer to the question, what business purpose does this project I am working on serve? Why does this project matter? And then asking, Why does that matter? These are usually pretty easy questions to answer. However, as important as answering these questions, is aligning everyone behind the answers so that the business purpose is shared.
Follow these simple steps to facilitate exploring your team’s business level purpose for a specific mission critical project they are executing.
Ask individual team members to answer the following questions on a piece of paper.
- Why does this project matter?
- Why does that matter?.
2. Place individuals into small groups. Have them share their answers and come up with a new group response to both questions.
3. Have small groups report out their answers and list them on a flip chart.
4. Look for common themes and finalize a statement based on those themes.
A clear business level purpose for execution is found within the project being executed. For example, if the project is to implement a new organizational structure worldwide, the business purpose may be stated as, “To grow our revenue and deepen our connection to customers and respond to their needs, a new organizational structure is required to move our company from selling products to selling solutions.” Purpose driven by the business’s aspirations, scales easily across multiple country and geographic borders. The project’s common purpose becomes a unique rallying point for all stakeholders regardless of location.
Team Level Purpose
A bit less tangible than defining the business purpose, defining purpose at the team level takes a bit more consideration. What is the unique value proposition of this team for this project? What does that shared purpose have to do with the business purpose? Exploring these questions as a team is an important shared activity to align people behind the unique role they and the business purpose it serves. In fact, sharing in the activity of exploring a team’s unique purpose in execution is more important than actually arriving at a final, nicely worded statement.
To develop a compelling shared team purpose, teams comprised of all levels and workstreams should go through a facilitated process. A facilitator works with teams to explore the group meaning derived from the project's business purpose.
Here is a simple exercise to facilitate the exploration of team purpose for execution.
1. Ask individual team members to answer the following questions on a piece of paper.
- What is the unique value proposition of this team for this project?
- How can we translate that into a team purpose?
2. Place individuals into small groups. Have them share their answers and come up with a new group response to both questions.
3. Have small groups report out their answers and list them on a flip chart.
4. Look for common themes and finalize a statement based on those themes.
Individual Level Purpose
Sometimes even less tangible than defining purpose at the team level, is defining and connecting an individual’s sense of purpose to the team and business purpose. It's about creating an emotional connection that has meaning to the individual. It’s not intellectual. Like team purpose, it’s not necessary to end with a written statement. More important is the exercise of exploring the individual purpose within each team member that connects to the team and project purpose.
Here is a simple guide to facilitate the exploration of individual purpose.
In a team meeting, ask individuals to take an Inventory. Tell team members that they will have five minutes in silence for each of the following:
- Identify and list your top 5 values. (5m)
- List your top 3 to 5 skillsets. (5m)
- List your top 3 interests. (5m)
2. Then ask participants to take 5 minutes in silence to have each individual consider what is related amongst these lists.
3. Then take 5 minutes to consider what do you have that you can give others?
4. Take 10 minutes to determine what matters most to you by answering:
- What matters to me about participating in this team and in this project?
- Ask yourself “Why” a few times. Write down your last answer.
5. Ask for volunteers who are willing share their answers with the larger team. No flip- charts.
6. As a team, discuss reflections of individual purpose on team and project purpose. Keep in mind, it is not necessary to arrive at a final written statement of each person’s individual purpose. Just exploring individual purpose via this method will connect people with what matters to them, the team and the project.
Once completed, all individuals and teams involved in execution share a purpose that compels their participation and commitment. Project participants are clear on the project and their role in it. Driven by a deeper meaning, participants are inspired and motivated to focus on action.
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