“70% of business leaders see being Purpose Driven as critical to business success.”

— Gartner

There are many approaches to discovering the Purpose of an organisation. I tend to like this, but many roads lead to Rome.

First, a Nota Bene. Many words are written about Purpose, Vision and Mission, and many companies use them interchangeably. Honestly, I'm not sure it matters what words you use as long as you mean the same thing. You can talk about rock, paper, scissors if you like, as long as everyone uses the same definition. Part of creating clarity is agreeing on what words mean.

In short:

• The vision is your unattainable ideal of what you want to achieve in your community (or world).

• The mission is how you get there and the attainable things you’ll do as measured by goals and objectives.

• The purpose is why you exist.

So if you exist to create as much green space as possible on our planet.

• Your Purpose could be just that: to create abundant green space.

• Your Vision might be to create a world where every person has immediate and unlimited access to nature.

• Your mission might be to create parks, reserves and gardens within 15 minutes of every European citizen.

In this short article, you’ll see some steps we employ to identify a company's purpose.

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Every organisation has a reason it exists beyond making a profit. An inherent purpose it wants to manifest to the world. Profit is the result of fulfilling your purpose. According to Gartner, purpose-led brands have seen their valuation surge by 175% over 12 years. According to Gallup, 70% of business leaders consider being Purpose Driven critical to business success. 

Your purpose is your story. A purpose on its own is generic and cold. It's the story that brings it to life.

So what is your purpose, and how do you create it? There are five aspects that we explore.

1. The People

2. External

3. Internal

4. The Beginning

5. The Future

“It is the things that impact us most directly that we are driven to change.”

People

• What are the beliefs of leadership?

• What do they care passionately about?

• What is their selfish vision that they are uniquely able to deliver?

• Why do people choose to work at the company?

People are the living expression of your brand. The stories they tell, how they behave and interact, and what they do. Your purpose sits in the myriad of people who work in your business. We bring that to the surface and make it visible.

We worked with a CEO who was passionate about climate change and changing the direction of the business to embrace a more sustainable approach. When pushed, part of the motivation was to ensure the kids could ski on the glaciers outside their houses.

It is the things that impact us most directly that we are driven to change. After all, Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream speech talks about his dream that his children could go to school ‘and not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the character of their hearts.’

The most significant movements on our planet often start as small and selfish visions.

External

• What do your customers want from you?

• Why do they choose you?

• What are the stories they tell about you?

• Where is the competition: what do they offer, what is their promise, and where is there a gap in the market?

Part of shaping your company's purpose is seeing what all your competition says about themselves.

Internal

Your results, sustainability plans, values, internal branding, and existing documentation are included. It's all the background about who you are, what you say, and what you believe.

“Making money is never the purpose, but it is mission-critical.”

The Beginning

What was the back-of-the-napkin moment that was the spark that launched the business? That moment when two people said, ‘What if we…’ What was their motivation, and whom were they serving? Whatever the reason, it was more than just making money. Making money is the result of meeting a need the people have. Companies rarely move far away from their source.

Into the future

• What is coming towards us?

• What does the future hold?

• What is in the unknown?

• This is not the planable future, but this is intuitive thinking: what ‘might’ be coming at us, and what might that mean?

• And then what?

You discover your unique purpose when these five elements collide and come together. And then what? From your Purpose comes your Vision, your belief about the world you want to create. Your vision is un unattainable. Your Mission is what you’re doing to reach that Vision. Your Mission is attainable, measurable, and continually shifting.

These are the definitions we use. In terms of how that maps on to Sinek’s Why, How and What. Your ‘Why’ is your Vision. ‘How’ is your unique Culture and approach, and 'What’ are the Products and Services?

And the result is…

Profit (if you’re a business, that is). Failure to make a profit usually means business failure, which means mission Failure. In other words, making money is not a purpose but mission-critical.