Impact and Purpose

I read a very interesting post today by andreas jonsson , founder and CEO of Shield and since I am not part of his network, I thought it was a bit much to write this a as a comment on his post and instead, I decided to write this little piece inspired by his post and as an add on to what he is writing.


First of all thanks to Andreas for posting his thoughts on Success as a founder or a bootstrapped founder. I believe there is a lot of truth to what he is saying and it made me consider if we should speak more about Personal Success (individual and subjective) and Business Success (collective and factual).


I’m not suggesting that my ideas on this are more correct than what Andreas is writing. I simply see a value in dividing personal and business when it comes to "what is success?".


This is something that I have been thinking about for many years and especially the past 10 years where it has become common to hear young people speak about Impact. I want to make in impact. My work needs to be have a purpose. And it is true. Completely true. No doubt, that work needs to make an impact. The question is what kind of impact, and where does it make impact? For whom does it make in Impact? What kind of purpose are we speaking about?


I’m close to turning 50 years, meaning that I grew up (work wise) in the late 90’s. Long before "Impact and Purpose" were words associate with any jobs, other than working for an NGO. But there was a huge Purpose behind everything we did and we clearly wanted to make an Impact. We just did not speak about it in the same way as today. It was not the driver behind selecting one job over an other.


The purpose was clear and given, the impact was the unknown.


Without speaking for a full generation, I will speak for myself.


Getting the first job was about:

1. Getting into the job market,

2. Getting a salary that could pay my bills

3. Buy a house

4. Get a car

5. Learning something to start looking for the next


That’s it. Lots of Purpose, lots of Impact. But it was very personal oriented Purpose and Impact.


Next job was about:

1. Making more money than last time,

2. Potentially getting the opportunity to see the world

3. Personal growth / branding (positioning for something bigger)

4. Building Wealth

5. Starting a family


Again. Lots of Purpose, lots of Impact. For the individual.


In my early 40’s (after 20 years of working) I started to look up and around. I started questioning my journey (not if it was good or bad) but if it made sense anymore. If it had a Purpose and made the Impact that I believed was important for me and for others. Those years ignited a turn in how I wished to work, what I wished to do, who I wished to work for and why!


It was the beginning of a new Impact and Purpose.


This felt like a luxury to me. That I could allow myself to think like this rather than just focus on where I could make more money as this is what a big part of my generation was brought up thinking. And I guess this is partly why we see this reaction / movement today about "Collective Impact and Collective Purpose".


But I honestly don’t believe I would have had the courage to think like that without having the 20 years of work behind me and with a more or less a financially secured life etc.


Where does this next generation of leaders get the courage from? What drives them in this direction? Is it popular culture, is it the climate change and possible crisis as a result of climate change, is it the endless access to funding from the venture market... feel free to comment and elaborate on this?


Coming back to the story. When I read a post like the one Andreas wrote yesterday, I feel happy on one side as I see great value in the fact that our young leaders think like this, act like this. On the other side I feel myself thinking; “can these same leaders build successful business’s that can provide for future growth of our global economy with this thinking already in their early days of building these same companies?” It’s an open question. Not a critic.


Will we be able to build sustainable business models that are People and Planet first already from the get go, or is this a "luxury good" that we can transform into once we have the business in a strong position with earnings and future growth?


And all of these thoughts were in reality only to say that I believe in looking into success with two lenses: "Business Success vs. Personal Success" and even though there are many connections between the two, there are also many things that are not up for discussion (in my book) when it comes to what a successful business is.

Here is my take and my original comment to Andreas:

A Successful business makes more money than it spends (at some point in time), it creates a healthy and safe work environment that leaves room for individual growth and learning, it provides a product or a service that the market is willing to use/purchase at a higher price than what it costs to bring it forward, it brings value to stakeholders such as employees, customers, partners and investors.


This is mostly factual in my perspective and not to be mistaken for Personal Success.


A Successful person on the other hand is a very personal and subjective matter. In my personal opinion, he/she has found something that he/she loves to do, that makes an impact aligned with the goals of the business and personal preferences, experiences continuous learning and enjoys the relationship with co-workers regardless of position and whether its giving or receiving appreciation and the job is paying a salary aligned with the lifestyle he/she wishes for.


But the personal success can be rewritten in thousands of versions as people come into a job with their individual plan… learning, making money, stepping stone, personal development, impact to make the world better, impact to make the business better, impact to make people better, build wealth, career making etc.


If it wasn’t individual and subjective, who would ever become a banker?

Troels Munck

I lead organizations to deliver the most profitable and innovative software products

1 年

Long time no see, Jacob Hagemann. I like your reflections, and the philosophy behind it resonates a lot with the many thought on the same topic I have had during my many hours of running :-). It is probably because we are the same age, we both started building companies around the same time. I guess though, that in those earlier days, my purpose was less structured and even more business than person. I never in those days with my first job had a thought about house nor cars. Those things would there be plenty of, when we become business successful. But as you say, would it have been even more successful (also business), if we have been more holistic and defined success more clearly - what was success really for us. Or would it maybe have slowed us down, and we would maybe never have worked that hard for so little with so many defeats and sacrifices? To be honest I don't think we at that point would have defined success different, for me at that point success was mainly business, and I could not fast forward and apply the understanding I have today. Thanks for your thoughts Jacob Hagemann

Isabelle Atro

Sales & Business Development @RAND Boats - AEHL

1 年

Very interesting words and thoughts, which made me reflect a lot. We spend a big portion of our lives at work, meaning in a way or another you want to make an impact if it's for yourself, others or both. In my eyes, I suppose I want to make an impact from two perspectives. One being from a more personal angle, where thanks to my performance and results I can be proud of myself while fulfilling my own personal goals, working for a company where I share similar values and I feel represented. On the other hand, making an impact for the company and for and the final consumers/clients, which can be seen as making my colleagues/managers proud of my work/results and feeling part of something bigger (which I would suppose refers to Collective impact/purpose), consequently making an impact in the consumers end too, reaching the full cycle. Therefore I do believe personal and business success are more related to each other rather than two distinguished types of success. Finally, I believe the search for a why also relates to awarness, whether it's cultural, social ect. The more one is aware of its surroundings the more one is inclined to work with a strong purpose/why.

Thomas Forss

Developing and executing AI strategies | PhD in NLP

1 年

"Where does this next generation of leaders get the courage from? What drives them in this direction" Access to information. I would credit the internet for it, it has made it possible for anyone to find role models that are successful and hold the values that resonate. Additionally, I think it's due to changes in education. Education is no longer about repeating things until you can repeat them in your sleep, it's about thinking and understanding. This then carries out to other parts of our lives.

andreas jonsson

bootstrapped founder | CEO @Shield: LinkedIn analytics made easy. Plug & play, track as many personal profiles you need. Learn more at shieldapp.ai

1 年

“can these same leaders build successful business’s that can provide for future growth of our global economy with this thinking already in their early days of building these same companies?” Great question! While your distinction between personal and business success makes sense, I like to think of them as more intertwined. Given your definition of business success in the article (quoted below), we hit the mark, despite starting from the values and perspective I shared in my post. "A Successful business makes more money than it spends (at some point in time), it creates a healthy and safe work environment that leaves room for individual growth and learning, it provides a product or a service that the market is willing to use/purchase at a higher price than what it costs to bring it forward, it brings value to stakeholders such as employees, customers, partners and investors." So my answer your question is this: Yes, but it depends. It depends on the scale of the impact, and the scale of "... provide for future growth of our global economy", which I believe is up to the founder(s), and their ambition, to define for themselves. Glad my post served as inspiration! thanks :]

S?ren Nielsen

Entrepreneur, Advisor, Executive, Author, Keynote Speaker

1 年

Interesting perspective Jacob Hagemann. I don't have the answers to these big questions, but I do believe that we're welcoming a generation on the job market that is looking for purpose. The 'Why' is important. I have however also learned that purpose can come in many shapes and forms. It doesn't have to be saing the rain forest, feeding the needy, or only secluded to NGO work. But purpose does in my opinion need to be an outside factor. That your actions can make a difference for somebody else – not yourself or as you put it your 'personal success'. The companies that understand the difference will in my opinion win. That's also why I don't believe that just making more money on a product than your competitors will get you very far in future generations – you will ALSO need to deliver purpose. There's a big difference.

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