Every Company Can (and Should) Be Purpose Driven

The problems associated with low employee engagement has spawned a myriad of content, all filled with best practices and initiatives to increase motivation and productivity. But much like the reactiveness of our healthcare system that treats mostly symptoms instead of truly focusing on wellness, so too are our treatments of low employee engagement in our organizations.

According to an article in the July-August 2018 issue of the Harvard Business Review titled Creating the Purpose-Driven Organization, the disappointing results that companies continue to experience around low employee engagement despite training, alterations in incentives and increases in managerial oversight can actually be blamed on the approach itself, and not the people.

In the article, researchers Robert E. Quinn and Anjan V. Thakor drive the point home that “applying conventional, economic logic, where you view your employees as self-interested agents and design you organizational practices and culture accordingly” will always yield disappointing results, and the true path to long term sustainability (or health and wellness for the organization) is always a result of helping connect its people to their purpose.

This is a hard truth for most executives to realize, as it generally takes a crisis of some magnitude to shift leadership’s thinking that the most effective bottom line results actually come from helping the employees connect with the organization’s purpose.

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