Peeling The Purpose Onion

Nothing real can be broken. Everything unreal crumbles. - Asher Jay, Sustainable Brands Conference, San Diego

I have a design and systems thinking background. This helps me create relatable metaphors and similes for complex ideas. To me, brand purpose is best exemplified by an onion, a sheathed bulb waiting to bud and blossom. Purpose and onions have a lot in common, both are layered, capable of lateral and vertical growth, beneficial in their entirety, and make people cry when their integrity is compromised or spliced apart.

Brand Purpose was illustrated two-dimensionally by Simon Sinek as three concentric circles, each stamped with its own respective label, “why,” “how” and “what,” going from the inside out.

To me, this Golden Circle is an incomplete pictorial representation of the concept as it whittles down the premise to a transverse section of the whole. My premise builds upon Sinek’s concept and reimagines his flat figure as a three-dimensional visual, tactile meaty metaphor, the onion. The onion's respective parts are further broken down into similes that delineate a corporation's roles, responsibilities, and clear lines of command and deliberate how these hierarchical tiers must work together to achieve the business objectives of an organization. The anatomy of an onion offers a compelling illustration of brand "purpose" as it imbues its framework with biomimetic intelligence and biophilic design integrity which is better suited to find tangible context in both the natural world and within social constructs.

The concentric circle diagram is commonly known as an onion diagram, yet no one thought to expound on the comparison to provide purpose with more than a KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) mental model in the form of theoretical contours.

I prefer to reference things we encounter in our everyday lives as that makes the concept more approachable and intuitive. The onion analogy gives the term “brand purpose” both a body and a sense of belonging. An onion is structurally stratified into layers that are separate yet overlapping and connected at its roots, its form is organic, its membranes are porous, its assemblage is protective, its constitution is supple, and its bulb is resilient against external stressors.

When brands build their purpose to reflect the multidimensional attributes of an onion, their Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives are more likely to exhibit cyclical processes that are not wasteful and result in impact outcomes that evidence a deeper sense of interdependence. Furthermore, I do not think the KISS method can address the complicated social and environmental crises caused by our careless and convenience-focused ways of living. When Johnson coined the (KISS) principle, he challenged a team of engineers to design a jet aircraft that could be repaired by an average mechanic in combat conditions using only the basic tools they would have available to them. The word "stupid" in this acronym thus highlights the relationship between how hard it is to fix something based on what part of it broke and how. So no, we cannot expect everyone to be able to solve equally for every problem we have ignorantly created. Consequently, we need to activate a tenacious network of experts from different disciplines, to co-solve for all the globally compounding consequences, synchronistically. We are combating multi-system failure, not a single organ malfunction. To examine the whole and its parts with all its relationships intact, we should not shy away from complexity. Simplifying things too much promotes complacency and champions linear band-aid fixes.

Let’s peel back the anatomy of the Purpose Onion one characteristic at a time to understand what it can teach us about Corporate Social Responsibility and how brands can give back more intentionally to both people and the planet through their sense of Purpose:

1. Layers: Signifies Organizational Structure: A strong brand would have a multifaceted or dimensional organizational structure that invokes the layers of an onion. Each layer represents a different aspect or function, all working together seamlessly to support the overall purpose.

2. Scales: The onion’s scales are both separate yet overlapping and connected at the base where it roots into its surrounding context, which speaks to the need for greater Inter and Intra-Departmental Collaboration and Stakeholder Cooperation: A brand would benefit from anchoring its departments on a central axis of core values, with each department working to enhance inter and intra-department collaboration. Similar to how the layers of an onion are distinct, yet intertwined, a successful brand would recognize the importance of synergistic cooperation and collaboration within and across its organizational divisions. Different departments, individuals, and stakeholders must work together, leveraging their unique expertise to advance a shared goal that is beneficial to both people and the planet.

3. Organic Composition: Organizational Integrity and Authenticity: An onion's organic form highlights the importance of integrity and authenticity in how a brand enacts its core values in the world and toward its stakeholders and consumers. Like an onion’s natural development is cohesive, comprehensive, and holistic, a brand’s purpose must always exhibit a throughline from its intrinsic values to its extrinsic outcomes. This indispensable alignment helps a brand avoid artificial attempts to please others, refrain from pandering to transient trends, and abstain from reactionary recourses that invite further public criticism.

4. Porous Membranes: Represents a corporation’s Openness to Feedback: Just as an onion has a porous constitution, successful brands should be receptive to critical feedback, real-time public and stakeholder engagement, symbiotic partnerships, and external input. Brands must proactively seek customer perspectives, and market insights while iterating on received feedback to improve and adapt to changing market needs, exacerbating social concerns, and compounding environmental consequences.

5. Self-protecting of its bulb Alignment with core values. Like how an onion swaddles its budding core with its fleshy scales, nourishing and protecting it from hostile externalities and shocks, a brand with a clear purpose will align its actions, decisions, and messaging with its core values, such that they come to defend its resiliency when threatened. By ensuring consistency brands build credibility and equity, which builds trust with stakeholders.

6. Fleshy Storage: symbolizes brands having to Build and Bank on Reserves. An onion’s scales are thick and fleshy because they store vital nutrients and water to nourish its growth and expansion. In the same vein, brands need to bear in mind the longevity of their mission and accumulate the necessary wealth of assets and talent that can continue to nourish the brand’s purpose. By continually replenishing and banking on reserves a brand would always be strategically forward-thinking while planning for calamitous contingencies by preemptively taking necessary actions to ensure continued success.

7. Supple Tissue: Represents Organizational Agility and Adaptability. An onion's supple scales afford the root vegetable the flexibility it needs to recover from ambient shocks and be resilient against changing external conditions. In embracing this quality of elasticity, an organization would be able to embody agility and adaptability across its operations and outputs, making it nimble enough to be able to respond to incoming stimuli and circumstantial shifts promptly. Successful brands must remain flexible, so they can refocus resources as social and ecological landscapes mandate, like during the pandemic or due to climate change. Brands need to be persistently alert to innovation, market trends, and emerging customer expectations, adjusting their strategies and empowering situational awareness and agency within and across their departments to personify purpose relevantly and with humanity.

8. Resilience: depicts Sustainability. An onion's architecture inherently takes into stock the kinds of externalities it is likely to have to weather, brands with a strong purpose would also be able to demonstrate resilience when tested by unpredictable elements like demand volatility, market fluctuations, or competitive pressures. To succeed, brands should focus on creating a lasting legacy instead of only reducing risks. This means taking a long-term view and practicing sustainability for the benefit of society, the environment, and the business.

9. Scent and Texture: underscores the value of brands leveraging Sensory Engagement to deepen their bond with their consumers. The aroma and tactile feel of an onion can evoke specific emotions and memories, much like how a brand's purpose can resonate with its target audience on a sensorial level. By depicting the brand's purpose as an onion, we tap into the power of immersive storytelling, allowing customers to engage with the brand's purpose narrative inescapably, to build a more profound emotional and psychologically instinctive connection.

10. Flourishing Plant: reveals the need to have an Integrative Approach and not get so focused on a role that it comes to cost the whole. An onion serves as a metaphor for growth and transformation. A brand's purpose can inspire growth, upgrades, revision, amplification, augmentation, and positive change, just like an onion bulb matures into a flourishing plant. By embracing the multidimensionality of an onion's anatomy, we communicate that a brand's purpose is not static but constantly evolving, encouraging innovation and progress.

The Purpose Onion’s dynamic model encapsulates the layers, depth, and interconnectedness of a brand's purpose while invoking emotional connections and inspiring growth. By using the attributes of an onion as similes for corporate/brand characteristics, we can better grasp the multidimensional nature of brand purpose. This methodology helps us understand how purpose permeates through the various levels of an organization, connecting people, values, and actions to drive coordinated meaningful impact.