Purpose before Profit

The last few years were full of great learning experiences as a leader, with the most impactful being the importance of discovering a shared purpose in your organization -- and then letting it lead you forward. Of higher order than the mission, a purpose is that thing that is too big to accomplish on your own; so aspirational that you are willing to spend your entire life towards its fulfillment. And while it shouldn't have to be said: finding a purpose is much, much more important than the discovery of the next strategy to grow profit. In the past, I'm not certain I would be able to authentically write that last sentence.

Why? Well, because most of my career has been in roles where the better the results I drive, the more money I make. Instead of focusing on the quality of holistic results, I was incentivized to drive the outcome of a few specific results. On the surface this isn't a bad thing, as many total rewards experts or organizational development consultants may point out. But when done in isolation, or without context to the larger ecosystem of the results and impact of collective efforts, it actually is bad -- or rather has a propensity to drive short-term, stakeholder agnostic tactics to win whatever period is being measured. Having spent the first 20+ years of my career in publicly traded companies, my view of the culprit is maneuvering to Analyst expectations for quarterly results; but that can be another article -- today I want to talk about Purpose.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. 
It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, 
to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.?
- Ralph Waldo Emerson        

A few years ago, my CEO coach and now great friend, Mark C. Thompson , invited me into Saturday conversations with some amazing people; including Hubert Joly , who among many great accomplishments wrote "The Heart of Business ." After reading it I realized that what we had done together at my former company was in fact recognizing our noble purpose, and thus elevating all of the stakeholders to mutual importance. Elevating the employees, intentionally called teammates, to the same level of importance as our customers was the watershed moment of people-centric investments, catalyzing a self-sustaining culture anchored by three promises, and leading to significant business results. This led to our company being recognized and certified as one of the US 'Great Places to Work.'

It's one of the reasons I said yes to Flashfood when Josh Domingues and the Board asked me to join them -- seeing a certified Great Places to Work was a validation that the working environment allowed every member of the team to bring their best, be their best, and do their best; but in a way that was sustainable, real, and didn't focus so much on business results that it failed to prioritize its impact on employees and their families.

And I have found that to be real in my first six months, and even more exciting is that I'm not the only one. Our growing company recently completed the GPTW survey for the second year in Canada, and for the first year in the United States -- and are proudly sharing the collective opinion by 96% of our workforce that Flashfood is, indeed a Great Place to Work.

Flashfood has just been certified as a Great Place to Work in both Canada and the United States.

Why is it great? Well, quite simply because of people like Taylor Najjar . When Taylor joined a few years ago as a software engineer, they had no idea the twists and turns of life, but did know they wanted to make a difference, wanted to learn, wanted to grow, and actually wanted to lead. We just promoted them to Engineering Manager for Payments, an exciting moment of capability growth for our company that wouldn't happen without the environment where Taylor could be themself fully, not holding anything back and thus moving the whole of us forward. Taylor, and more than 100 other teammates like them, are why Flashfood is a Great Place to Work.

And the collective energy and innovation of this committed team, and all of the Flashfood Alumni who were here before us, are why we celebrated being number 36 on Fast Company 's list of the World's Most Innovative Companies this year.

And, it's one of the reasons why we've helped our retail partners save their shoppers over $150,000,000.00 on groceries and kept more than 80,000,000 pounds of perfectly good food out of North American landfills.

It's the reason I joined, the reason others have joined, and the reason why North American grocers trust us to help them accomplish their sustainability and hunger goals. It's the reason why millions of Canadian and US citizens have spent time planning a meal in our app, and the reason why we are taking the summer to dig deep into our purpose, our brand, and our products so we can accelerate our impact in communities.

I'm not sure any of the above would happen without a foundation of purpose being the focus before profit ... which is still important, as without it we could not keep growing! And that growth is creating opportunities for many people, such as our Graduate Interns Ginny Watsham and Savannah Moss who are about to share their projects with us. It's an exciting time, with so many great things happening or in planning. Our purpose is still being put into words and we will share it soon ... but there is no delay in acknowledging it is absolutely noble.