#36 Purpose
My exploration of ‘purpose’ began in earnest in 2011.
I had been handed a book by my outstandingly successful book filter, Megan, that she knew would strike a chord. Two years old at the time (not me, the book!), it was yet to hit the corporate headlines.
The book was Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink . Suspicious that it was just another ‘motivational book’, I was delighted to discover it was, instead, an insightful ‘exploration of our motivations’.
Its core tenet, now common theory amongst professional non-fiction amateurs and professionals alike (thanks to this engaging 10-min video summary ), is that, to be sustainably motivated in our work, we need three key ingredients:
The first two made complete sense, as I digested that book. Possibly because they were already well-defined concepts, or possibly because Pink put the most effort into providing context for those two terms in relation to motivation.
For whatever reason, purpose remained least clear to me. I could make sense of the link to motivation, but the breadth and depth of Pink’s meaning of ‘purpose’ remained ill-defined.
So, I did what most curious, budding bookworms would do when they don’t get an idea deeply enough. I Googled ‘Purpose’ and found there was a world-leading expert on the topic named Nikos Mourkogiannis who had published Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies .
If I didn’t understand purpose after reading that book, there was no hope for me (or my motivation).
What is purpose?
Purpose is the deep and meaningful essence of why something exists. It’s the answer to the question “Why?”.
Inanimate objects have it easy. They have a very clear and defined purpose. A lawn-mower’s purpose is to cut grass. A power switch stops or starts a circuit that delivers power. A peeler’s purpose is to remove the skin from vegetables, the occasional fruit, and less commonly, a careless finger.
When we turn to animate objects, such as humans, teams and organisations, defining purpose becomes a little (if not infinitely) more difficult.
Simon Sinek would tell you (in Start with Why ) the reason we struggle to explain our ‘why?’ is that it’s an emotive question and the part of our brain that controls our language is different to the part that controls our emotions. It’s the same reason can be hard to answer questions like ‘Why do you love your partner?’ or ‘Why do you feel sad?’.
I tend to think it’s more to do with our over-thinking the question. It’s a very simply question, possibly the simplest of all questions: It’s just a three-letter word, after all.
Whether you’re expressing it was an individual, a team or an organisation, the best answer to the existential question “Why?” or its verbose four-word equivalent “Why do you exist?”, is an equally brief response.
It’s the deep thinking that goes into forming the question that’s difficult.
‘My’ Purpose and ‘Our’ Purpose
In contemplating purpose, it’s important to draw the distinct between the very personal, individual purpose and a group’s collective purpose.
Much like values , there’s a line to draw between “mine” and “ours”.
They are not, should not and are not necessary to be the same, or even tightly aligned. But a degree of alignment is helpful in making sense of your role in the organisation, allowing your work to feel more meaningful and ensuring a higher degree of engagement .
Your personal idea of your purpose is singularly and solely yours to make sense of. No one can tell you what your purpose is or help you define it. It’s for you to chose to consider and define. It’s deeply personal and spiritual. That said, you may also choose not to define or even dwell on it.
An organisation’s purpose is theirs to define. Mourkogiannis says of all the successful companies he’s researched, each one fits into one of four purpose categories:
You’ll notice how these are not pithy, verbose statements but one-word, essence-based concepts that frame an answer to “Why?”.
Why does purpose matter?
Purpose is the source of a person’s, group’s or organisations’ truth.
In his book, Belonging , Owen Eastwood talks about purpose in a team context, when he describes this essence as “the apex in teams: a powerful shared purpose where individuals attach deeper personal meaning to that cause.”
I think of purpose as a light source from which everything is illuminated. Once it is defined and understood, like a torch’s beam, it projects the direction of travel and illuminates the path. It filters through all the other things that come next for a person or an organisation: Vision, values, goals, strategy, rituals and routines.
The image below elaborates this idea:
If it is the light or life source for us, then it’s pretty important then, right?
This is why I enhance the classic one-line truism below with the second statement, when thinking about purpose’s role in a professional context:
Sure, culture eats strategy for breakfast. But purpose dines daily with values and culture, and always sits at the top of the table, designing the menu.
While Mourkogiannis has four, one-word, non-pithy purpose categories, others can risk diluting, denigrating and down-right devastating the spiritual sanctum of purpose.
Misappropriated Purpose
The question of purpose for a group or organisation is not something that should be left to the faint-heated (or communications, marketing or sales departments). That’s where purpose can off the rails.
Organisations can over-complicate the simple answer to “Why?” by attempting to merge (or even replace) it with a sales slogan or customer-captivating cliché .
Just like purpose is a personal, spiritual, essence-based matter for an individual, for a statement of purpose to be meaningful for an organisation, it must also be essence-based. Not something for splashing on walls and websites, but something you feel inside the organisation.
When the definition of purpose gets into the wrong hands or is done for the wrong audience, purpose gets misappropriated, and staff get confused.
For people, purpose is personal. For organisations, purpose is internal. Organisations can confuse purpose and mission or values. The latter two are aspirational goals of a future state. Purpose is the “why” for its people. Purpose is about belonging, and all organisations public, private and non-for-profit would love their customers to feel like they belong. But if the purpose statement is written for the customers first and foremost, there’s a risk it doesn’t retro-fit for the employees.
The light can only come from one source and it must shine through the employees before it reaches the customers.
It makes sense then to consider an intrinsic purpose (one that describes the ‘why?’ for an organisation) and an extrinsic or external purpose (one that speaks to the customer). The latter would need to be aligned with the former.
Why?
There was a story going around university about a first year Philosophy paper, in which a student got top marks for their final exam. The three-hour exam required one essay to be written in response to the question. That year, the question was simply “Why?”.
That top student got 100% for their essay.
It read: “Why not?”
Postnotes: