Find your purpose - 28 questions to ask the business owner

My mantra has, for the last 10-12 years, been to "create culture and structure for excellence". I made a model to explain the elements necessary to achieve this excellence - and part of that is about creating the structure I believe any enterprise need. The model has sustained through time and I keep coming back to it when I work with organisations and customers. I call this model “The scope and deliveries within quality management”.

(My article on "Creating a culture for excellence" can be found HERE.)

Now there are some things I need to know before I start providing a structure (the orange boxes in the figure). I need to know something about the purpose and what we are trying to achieve, i.e. objectives and framing of the work to be done. In an established enterprise or a large industrial project this can be found in the executive execution strategy and other strategies and mandates developed for the work to be done in the enterprise or for the project, but even before we develop these, we do need have an idea of where we are going and why.

The second thing is to have a grasp of the risk picture. What can go wrong and where do we have opportunities for better and simpler ways to our goals (as risk is considered a neutral aspect with both upsides and downsides)? The risk picture changes as the context changes, so this is not set in stone, and we always have to come back to the risks.

The third thing is the expectations and requirements that are put upon our enterprise, which include laws and regulations as well as expectations and needs from our customers and stakeholders.

The output of the work we do with quality can be summarized as precision of deliveries, continual improvement of our work and value creation for our customers and owners - or other stakeholders, depending on the enterprise.

Everything in the middle, the elements of quality management, is at least 6 different articles in addition to the one on culture, but let's go back to the first part - the purpose. (Purpose is a fundamental ingredient in the TEAL-organisation as well). In some companies or enterprises, this might not be crystal clear. Some might have formulated a vision or mission. But what if this is only a slogan and have no meaning other than some nice writing on the wall? To get to the bottom of the true purpose of an enterprise you need to find the motivation of the owners and the competence of their people, the outside/stakeholder perspective of the enterprise and the value creation that they are looking for. The four elements are derived from the IKIGAI-model, which I described in my last article about TEAL organisations.

Here is a list of questions to ask the business owner on these 4 topics:

Motivation: (IKIGAI: The thing you love)

1. Why do you own the company?
2. What was the original idea behind the company and how has it evolved?
3. What is the idea behind the company now?
4. What is the most rewarding and fun of being the owner of this company?
5. What is the hardest thing?
6. What is it about owning the company that keeps you awake at night – if anything?
7.  What do you think a lot about?
8. What's the most boring?

The competence: (IKIGAI: The thing you are good at)

1. What are you – personally – really good at? And what is the company really good at?
2. What can we make sure that we maintain a learning organisation, and continuously learn from our mistakes?
3. With 4-5 words, can you describe the company's working environment?
4. What does it take to make the working environment even better so our people stay?

Outside world/stakeholders: (IKIGAI: The thing the world needs)

1. What do you think our customers need?
2. What do you think our employees need?
3. Why do you think the employees choose to accept and stay in a job at the company?
4. What do you think our suppliers need?
5. What do you think the community around us needs? Locally, regionally, nationally, internationally?
6. What do our competitors think about us?
7. What makes this company special, compared to the competition?
8. Why does the company exist in this market?
9. In what other markets could the company distinguish themselves?

 Making money: (IKIGAI: The thing you can make money from)

1. Can you imagine selling the company? To whom and at what price?
2. How do you want the company to be perceived externally? (Customers, communities, suppliers etc)
3. How does the company earn money and is it a goal to increase revenue and profit margin?
4. How will you spend the profits and dividend from the company ?
5. If this money is to be used to invest in new business opportunities – what will these be?
6. What do you see as the future of the company?

The answer to these questions should enable the formulation of a purpose which you can - again - use IKIGAI to test if it is solid.

A purpose formulation like "Maximise shareholder value" does not fulfill the test. The people in the organisation will not love the idea of getting the owners richer, it is not their WHY (unless we have an employee-owned business), they will not be very good at it, the world does not necessary need richer owners and it is a short-term goal for making money. The quality guru Deming (article in Norwegian) was in particular critical to this type of short term thinking and asked: "What value is a 25% increase in the quarterly dividend to a company that is out of business five years from now?"

A better formulation would be "Deliver first-rate [market segment or main product line] for enduring trust and cooperation with [our most important stakeholders]". We love and are good at delivering first-rate products. The world needs it (hopefully) and we can make money from delivering first-rate products. Same with the second part - building on lasting or enduring trust and cooperation with our employees, customers, owners and community - it also stand the IKIGAI-test.

What is the purpose of your enterprise and does it stand the IKIGAI-test? Please share your perspectives and insight.