Do You Really Need a Higher Purpose

Elon Musk believes that passion and purpose will always scale. Rightly so, he is a living example of bold ambitions. Musk is pushing companies to ferociously scale up towards a higher purpose. But let's be honest, not every company can be elon-ized. Here is an example of how purpose manifests itself in insurance and healthcare.

Do You Need a Higher Purpose

Often, we hear that purpose-driven companies show greater dedication to a cause. Enterprises such as Tesla Motors, SpaceX and NeuraLink are exemplary in the pursual of a higher purpose. They may be considered pioneers in accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy, enabling the colonization of Mars, or ‘saving the human race’ (with a hard drive that can be implanted in the brain).?

Purpose-driven companies go beyond the economic ideal of maxizing profits. They attract investors' attention and appetite and can create a virtuous cycle of getting enhanced access to capital by generating greater benefits for society.

So, are the times of profit-maximizing managers really over? I am rather mitigated about the debates on profit versus purpose. Considering Musk as an outlier in the landscape of corporate ambition, I do believe that there is also room for bold ambitions on a different scale which may equally create better lives for all of us.

Strike the Balance between Profit and Purpose

With economic shocks cascading into our lives, many professionals are spending their days bolstering business resilience and securing cashflow and profitability. By no means, this is an easy task. They revise financial targets, challenge the plans to hit them and seek new ways to accelerate efficiencies.

In such crisis mode, it takes effort for most of us to refocus on a higher purpose. Even if the leader's role is to strike the balance between profit and purpose, also in times of crisis. So how do you get to the right balance?

I see pockets in our organization, every week, where individuals and teams passionately pursue shared goals. They keep innovating around customer pain points, without ever asking for a higher purpose. They know how to strike the balance by going out of their way to improve our lives with new technologies. They help to run our business more efficiently and collaborate with external partners to offer new, disruptive services to our customers.

Only last week one of those team mentioned to me, quasi as an aside: "We empower more people to live healthier lives and be the best version of themselves". That is what I call purpose at a team level and at a different scale.

Health - a Tribute to Purpose

Health insurance is nowadays one of the fast growing business lines at AXA where purpose manifests itself prominently. Reason being, insurers and customers are in unison in their interests to get faster access to medical care, drive up prevention and contain inflation in healthcare.

As a consequence, a proliferation of digital solutions have emerged over the last two years of pandemic. Many of the solutions aim to improve the patient's journey and reduce healthcare costs which have been skyrocketing post Covid-19 to an annual 6000 - 1000 USD per person (Nordics and countries like Germany and Switzerland make up the top 5; WHO).

Latest studies also show that, due to restrictions during the pandemic, the number of people inclined to use telehealth services has tripled with drastic increase to 79%. Digital health services are expected to grow with a 22% CAGR over the period of 2020 to 2023.

Over the same period, AXA will invest significantly to be able to offer a full range of partner services from early prevention to wellbeing throughout all life stages. At second sight, the purpose of creating a Health ecosystem as an insurer may have the same relevance for society as colonizing Mars. It is a less prominent purpose, but it is equally valuable and important.

• In Europe, our digital health solutions support hundreds of people to check their health symptoms early and get reliable advice anytime and anywhere. A Symptom Checker is being implemented in Belgium, Spain, Germany and Italy.
• In UK we have been adding free-of-charge second opinion to our patients' journeys. Furthermore, customers are increasingly interested to get access to a range of Health & Wellbeing products and services. The UK teams have most recently launched a new B2B2E-Wellbeing app to the market. Our research shows that such inclusive offers are destined to increasingly address the future needs and preferences of younger generations and women in particular.

• In Germany, we managed to get prescriptions sent and paid directly via our established healthcare platform "Meine Gesundheit". eBilling options are popular as they turn your doctor's appointment into a frictionless and simple experience. The platform offers - all in one - many add-ons such as instant insurance coverage checks, personal medication plans (including push messages to remind you of the timely intake) as well as side effects tracking.
• In January this year, AXA announced to globally launch a AXA Mind Health Index aiming to monitor progress made in mind health over time (the related report is worth a read). Recent data from 2022 shows that in some of our markets the treatment of psychological condition has increased worryingly by no less than 60% compared to 2019. We expect Mental Health to join the ranks with other prominent societal health topics such as chronic diseases and obesity.

This is why we recently made a major commitment at AXA to share the same bold vision with our partner Microsoft: We want to create an open healthcare ecosystem to improve patient engagement leading to better healthcare outcomes.

The purpose of creating a Health ecosystem as an insurer is to improve customer experience and retention, give easier access to care and make prevention an integral part of the customer journey.

• We encourage health players to collaborate in an open system and orchestrate today's fragmented and costly health journeys.
• With an integrated health ecosystem we aim to break through to superior analytics for better medical diagnosis and treatment outcomes.

In healthcare, converging goals between customers, insurers and partners can support significant progress for humanity. This also have been recognized on European level as a concrete aftermath of the pandemic.

This week, the European Union published the Health Data Space legislative proposal to advance on pan-European level in making the healthcare sector more efficient and to advance in scientific research. Telehealth and the development of new digital health services and products based on data, are integral part of the proposal. ?

To sum it up, creating a Health ecosystem as an insurer can at times be as complex as colonizing Mars. Even if we act less prominently in our purpose, it may impact many lives in a valuable and important manner.

Can you Create the World You Want

But say, you do not work in areas such as healthcare. Imagine your North Star has become blurred, how can you find purpose at work?

There is no one-size-fits-all, there are many teams who found their own way to move from ambition to execution with unconditional purpose. These teams eradicate the zone of cynics which exists in large Corporates. They translate bold ambitions on Powerpoint into concrete deliverables on the ground.

I recently read an article which summarizes well what I observe around me:

1. Create a team purpose: teams can turn their own workgroup into the kind of organization you aspire to. They win their space with unconditional empathy to your users. When exploring the aspirations and needs of their customers, there is few doubts on why they are here for and what they are set out to do.
2. Can-we-test-it culture: Every project plan needs to be put to a test, repeatedly. Have we found the best way through this initiative to create greater value for our customers and future-customers, our users? Most complex business cases, designed to serve one particular purpose, have to be readjusted over time. You will want to stay ahead of the curve in adjusting your plan when it comes to absorbing unexpected market shifts, inflation trends or rapid technological advancements.
3. Collaboration over competition: Humans are extremely social animals, and supportive relationships are essential to engage purposefully at work. But many of us are still managed and measured on individual performance, unfortunately. People who share objectives and have opportunities to collaborate and have strong working relationships take more pride in their organizations. They will have a stronger customer focus, more-innovative ideas, greater motivation and determination to contribute to their community.

Perhaps there is not always a need for a higher purpose. Purpose emerges when teams can create the conditions to put into action what we aspire to.

A good read on the purpose debate:

https://hbr.org/2022/03/purposeful-business-the-agile-way