The litmus test of your Organization's Purpose

“What’s the Raison d'etre- the reason for our company’s existence.”

I assume like myself, most of you would also have heard that statement many times from CEO’s and Promoters, usually followed by an expensive exercise that transcends few employees who are asked to fill-up lengthy surveys or participate in focus group discussions, to finally conclude and announce to everyone in the company why does their business exists.

Honestly speaking, I do not have a problem with that. Although if you are doing that soul-searching exercise after 5 or 10 years of your company’s existence, it raises a lot more questions than the answers the company’s leadership is seeking through the exercise. However, the actual problem starts post the exercise- grand announcements are made, townhalls held, senior leaders are pulled in to speak about the purpose and its alignment with the company’s strategy, and soon before the employees know, “the grand purpose” is lost in the company’s HR announcement email chains. I have found a few outcome patterns that follow- either there is a change in senior leadership and so the exercise is repeated all over with a newer version of the purpose. Or the employees learn with time that the company’s way of doing business- its processes, policies and procedures, is inconsistent with the defined purpose, and therefore the purpose becomes a rhetoric grandeur scheme which is defeated every single time while being weighed-up against higher profits.

So, what is the problem here, you may ask. The answer lies in the painstaking research that James Collins and Jerry Porras conducted while writing their masterpiece “Build to Last”. They found that while a lot of companies waste too much time and money deciding “the content” of the purpose, it is the “authenticity of the purpose” which matters because it is only at the deepest level of human emotions that people can stand by their decisions even when being weighed-up against short term profits. And to make that emotional connection, you need an authentic purpose. They also found that next to authenticity, it is the consistency with which a company and its leaders “live-by the purpose” in their routine decision-making and mundane daily tasks which matters to people to start believing in the organization’s shared purpose.

So, whether as an organization you are customer-centric or employee centric, or are deeply obsessed with your product or service, or are an audacious risk-taker or centered around innovation; it doesn’t matter as long as your company’ core ideology is authentic, and the company remains consistent to that core ideology all along the journey. Collins and Poras define core ideology as a function of your organization's purpose and a set of core values which the organization believes in. Ideally speaking, both the purpose and the values must remain consistent throughout the life of the business. Look around company's which are leaders in their industries- they have radically stronger core ideology and they live it on a daily basis. Company promoters and CEOs should go back to the start to discover their core purpose- the why of their company’s existence is often embedded in the start; and bring out that purpose repeatedly while communicating to all internal and external shareholders. Because when the day of reckoning arrives, your company and its employees will need the strength of a shared purpose and values to stand by the storm.