6 Barriers to Your High-Performance, You Got Fuzzy Belief (part 2)

Part 2, Believing: you got fuzzy beliefs in the company and its shared purpose, or, your personal purpose?

An unclear purpose gets lost, or at minimum deferred, … to our individual beliefs that feel more immediate and clearly in focus. We've got to survive perceived threats and succeed in our sustaining social groups… etc. You know what’s really hard to lose, a shared belief in purpose, within a sustaining social group, like your company. We’re wired to pull together in sustaining a shared clear purpose, to live in an Us Story. A fuzzy purpose on the company, and not being clear on our individual purpose, makes it a hard place to get to an Us Story.

If our group or company, and especially our leaders aren’t clear in espousing a unifying belief in purpose, we land in our individual selves, peeling-off in the wondering of, “yeah, why am I doing this again?” In the fuzziness, it’s far easier for the distractions of the daily work whirlwind to set our individual joint beliefs about purpose aside on a regular basis. Stacking our personal purpose with the company purpose never happens because we don’t have a clear target to believe in. Hence, no eyes on the prize. No prize.

I Remember… hearing, "does anybody even use what we're building? Does what we're making matter... make a difference?" The words out of our principal developer's mouth echoed in my ears for days. The fact that three out of the five largest wireless carriers in North America used our product, didn't mean shit to him. That story didn't touch his purpose. And it left him with a bit of a joy vacuum. A rather contagious one.

Our software product running on rugged mobile devices eased the suffering of asset lifecycle management, making it better, faster, and easier, with full integration into enterprise financials, warehousing, provisioning... etc.

Did I just put you to sleep? Thought so. We were putting our developers to sleep, not on purpose though.

A few days later, I'm looking for something in Home Depot. No big surprise... Where's the stuff I'm looking for... ugh... I come across Marty in plumbing. He greets me with a giant smile, "Hey Paul, and George! (my yellow lab), how can I help you!"

Me: Hey Marty, trying to find these fittings and I'm having no love here. Your website says you have 23..., - I pull one of them out of my pocket. At the same time, Marty gives George a yummy treat.

Marty: Oooh! I can help you with that. We just got a new app and device that actually makes things easier. (and he goes on and on about it)

He took me right to them.

Me: Hey, you want to show me that device and app? (it's the same device our software runs on! and Marty loves it!)

Marty's world was so much better that he excitedly shared what a rugged mobile device it was with an app that took his daily frustration while performing his work, away.

So, I went back to the dev team the next day and told Marty's story.

Later that day, our CFO walks up with a happy yet puzzled look, to tell me that our principal developer came to see her. He wanted to talk with all of our customers to find out how our product was really impacting lives. To whom could he talk to get this going?

I smiled. It worked. Belief shared. Pedal to the metal.

Our individual purpose drives us, but, hits a performance barrier when we’re alone in our individual limitations. When the company purpose lacks clarity, we get unclear and that equals fear in our brains, and down goes our performance. Regardless of our knowing our own purpose, we take our foot off the gas to navigate the fog.

And then there's when were unclear in our own personal purpose. You know, that, "what am I gonna do with my life feeling." We can get swayed by all sorts of causes that may not be true to us, and often leads us to create a hedge that prevents us from going all-in on any of the purposes we join.

Next to belonging, purpose is the next utmost, and by just barely, the responsibility of all leadership in a company. Why does belonging get the edge over purpose? Because without belonging, a purpose can’t truly be shared or sustained. Without real belonging, you're setting yourself ticket caught in a civil war of multiple sides going towards the same goal, but not together. That’s parallel purpose, under the auspices of getting paid by the same business. What inevitably happens there is that individuals fight for my way instead of our way. They say, I go, instead of we agree to go together. That’s a lot of self-preservation. All of that energy gets withheld from our performance.

Clearing the Barrier: clearly define and communicate your company purpose, so your people can weave their personal stories into a larger Us Story

When we're a group of people in shared purpose, we’ll have a far better chance of avoiding our turning into a frat, or sorority party. We have these constant attributes in our neurobiology: to belong and to grow. Belonging in purpose gives us that intrinsic reward, I matter as part of a, "we," especially as the tribe gets more successful. And when we get the extrinsic reward of growth towards our joint purpose, it triggers another neurobiological constant, to explore. Our brains light up and scream, let’s explore more!

That shared belief, also serves as our compass, channeling our exploring drive into a pointed sustainable, Us Story. For a company, this is a clear defining space where if you’re not in for the purpose, you’re out. This is why company OOS’s, like EOS and 4DX, are so helpful when they anchor mission objectives in the company’s core purpose. OOS’s keep the strategic purpose of our shared belief in constant public focus, within the tribe. We make it far easier to stay in the game from our individual or personal contribution. Performance stays focused.

Our belonging in a shared purpose creates an aspirational we-space that gives us a lift to our neurochemistry. Our brains want, love & accountability, (oxytocin + endorphins + serotonin). We are part of something bigger now! We love winning and being accountable to each other. The joy and celebration come from this! This gives us an extra oomph as we pool our shared strengths and this inspires higher levels for each other in effort and for the pursuit itself.

Having difficulty belonging in your purpose?

Feel free to reach out to me, let's chat. Not sure where to start? Give me a call, 206-714-6113, or drop me an email, [email protected].

Next in the set: 6 Barriers to Your High-performance,

Part 3, Living Values: You can’t live from your individual values and strengths, so, you can't belong with yourself

#belonging #highperformance #culture #purpose #BCOS #OOS #growth #belongingcoach