Purpose-driven Life and Leadership

As a kid, I would spend substantial time outdoors playing with my friends. We lived close to the airport, and airplanes would keep shuttling to and from what we today know as the ‘Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport’.?

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Some of our group boys had this weird practice of getting into a race with an overhead airplane, and again and again, like a million times, we would watch them run right up to the end of the building compound wall, and that's it. Needless to say, no one could race the airplane; kids indeed can be funny!! I still reminisce and laugh about these childhood episodes.

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But to cut a long story short, if one has to reflect on such or similar acts today, we would wonder what is the end objective of such meaningless actions. No matter what your action is, if there is no goal or end objective to be achieved, it becomes a meaningless effort. So if you are racing overhead planes, just to reach a dead end, you might want to rethink whether you want to race at all!

Without purpose, our journeys are meaningless.

As against racing against overhead airplanes, we might as well play Sudoku, it is goal-oriented and gives you purpose to strive ahead, not to mention that it keeps your brain agile.

Let’s look back at our early days in college; while for quite some of us, our parents had already pre-decided what we would pursue by way of academics, there was an equal lot who did not know whether they should take Science, Commerce, or Arts. Didn’t we feel so directionless? A feeling of helplessness and anxiety. Even then, we would look at success stories around and try to emulate or walk along similar career lanes. That was our effort to give our lives direction and bring about some certainty or purpose to our academic pursuits. Of course, over time, goals keep changing or evolving, but even then, without goals, it’s a meaningless life.

We have come a long way since, but I am positive that each one of us can look back and vividly see the several milestones of our lives – some that we are proud or happy about and perhaps some that naturally resulted because of our purpose-led efforts.

What about some dreams that didn’t transpire? Come to think of it, if you reflect, you will be able to see a clear absence of or deviation from goal-oriented efforts.?

Extrapolation to the workplace and organizations

On countless occasions, during my projects, and as part of my role as a change agent, I question employees and teams at my client site, about what they do and why they do, what they do. It surely comes as no surprise to me (nor should it to you), when they say that it is what they have been told. The word ‘goal’ or ‘vision’ comes nowhere close in any of the dialoguing that ensues.

Now, something to ponder here is without purpose and goals, the working of a team member or teams can be highly non-fulfilling and meaningless. Certain things happen because that’s how they have been happening for ages or the likes. Often, when I investigate reasons for dissatisfactory performance or a demotivated workforce, one strong underlying factor that contributes to such existence is directionless working; this is in sharp contrast to motivated and zealous teams, who know their purpose and are intrinsically driven to collaborate and accomplish goals.

The onus of giving purpose to any function or group of people lies on the shoulder of the leader. This, in fact, is a clear demarcator between a purpose-driven leader and a task-driven leader.

Way back when I was a senior manager with one of my employer organizations, there was one major rejig as one of the business verticals that wasn’t yielding as projected. What followed was a lot of side talks, fear of job loss, guesswork about who would be retained and who not, and more. However, all of this uncertainty was put to rest when the CEO, stepped forth and addressed this by way of a town hall. He was honest about what we were going through and what to expect over the forthcoming months. I could see humility as he expressed the challenge and owned up to the failure that had resulted. Behind the screen, he had already had discussions with his reporting business heads about how to minimize any layoffs and absorb a workforce that would soon have nothing to do. He created a team that would work towards ensuring seamless and smooth shifts across departments, as well as planned exits. What raised his respect in my eyes, was that for those who couldn’t be absorbed in the renewed organization structure, he managed to get them opportunities across our vendor partners and even clients, with the help of his business leaders! Deep respect. I simply loved this man for his people-centric approach.?

Trust me, post that town hall, there was more acceptance of the change that was underway, and the initial feelings of unfairness, apprehension, and depression dissolved, and evolved to those of relief, surety, and being cared for.

What I learned from this incident is, that even though the goal was to disband a unit, how the leader chose to add value to the ultimate purpose. I’m sure quite some of us might have witnessed something similar and in not so much a humanistic way.

Purpose-driven Teams

One of my all-time favorites in this context is the movie?‘Chak de India’.?I have used a lot of it’s scenes in so many workshops.

The versatile efforts put in by SRK, as the coach, to shape India’s women’s hockey team and bring out their potential, fills you with awe for what he is able to drive.

Now, coming back to corporate circles, how can we create such magic??

A great leader carries absolute clarity about the vision for his organization and/or business unit. It is this unified vision that helps her/his efforts become purpose-driven. Great business leaders are particular about short-term and long-term goals. This helps them design or draw up an optimal structure for their respective teams. Not only that, they are clear about who will play what role on the team; also, how in playing their respective roles, will a team be able to reach it’s goals.

When my firm gets approached by clients, for employee engagement problems, so that they have more committed and self-driven employees, we don’t go about offering only team-building workshops. One of the first things we attempt to examine is, if the teams (that are claimed to be non-committal and disengaged) are aware of the organizational vision/purpose, and how their functioning impacts this vision. When our preliminary diagnosis reveals not just gaps, but chasms in this context, it serves as an eye-opener to the primary stakeholders. We try to steer their boat back by revealing that if people find meaning in the purpose of their work and can correlate their existence in the organization to its larger purpose, natural engagement, and commitment occur. With time, this only gets stronger, provided the team can make this correlation continuously.

Revisiting and Redefining Your Purpose

All said and done, purpose definitely gives direction to any team or organization that is there. But that being said, having a steadfast and fixed vision may sometimes pose more challenges than offering strength and inspiration. When you realize that a series of consistent actions by a unit or multiple units are failing to attain the desired goal, and investigation and experimentation reveal low probabilities of reaching the goal, then perhaps it is time to revisit the goal itself. In general practice, actions are decided basis the purpose of a team’s existence. However, once the team starts functioning, rarely is the purpose revisited vis-à-vis the actions taken, more often than not, it is the actions that are either increased, eliminated, modified, automated, etc. but the goal remains constant….just like I have seen job descriptions staying constant for years and even across levels ??.?

Often in such scenarios, I have witnessed that the organization along with it’s teams will do their mighty best concerning change in action, but until they face failure multiple times, and reviewing, redefining goals and purpose isn’t as frequent as the other way around.

Here’s where learning organizations are quick to learn and adapt. They attempt, they fall, they learn from their failures (as well as those of others), adopt new practices, and rise to take their rightful position again.

Looking back at when I founded Execore Spectrum, my purpose was to cater to the executive learning needs of small and medium businesses in India, however, the pandemic got us to the realization, that where people were losing jobs, they hardly were going to opt for learning and development of diminished teams. The entire objective was now around how to make do while working remotely. What work policies should be introduced and tweaked to accommodate this, dealing with work distribution, communication across units, et al. We were quick to realign and adapt. We started helping some of our clients with the challenges at hand, and eventually, we evolved with our purpose. Today, we offer a comprehensive range of change management solutions that our clients can avail of. More importantly, our first step started with educating clients that perhaps the solution to all people-oriented problems in an organization, doesn’t have to be training.

It's an obvious no-brainer that had we chosen to stick with our original purpose, it was a matter of time before we would be compelled to shut shop (with our close-to-heart vision) like I witnessed so many other businesses wind up. So, evolving one’s purpose to cope with changes within and without your system, is a must.

I’m sure those of us who are categorized as ‘Millennials’ at some point in time must have owned a camera. ‘Kodak’ was a ruling name during those times and quite some of us must have owned one too (Mine is there somewhere at the back of my wardrobe, as a memoir).

Kodak went out of business as it chose not to?adapt to evolving market conditions. Its purpose was to generate amazing?hardcopy?photographs. Kodak's extra tenacious nature to stick to its original purpose and to choosing to ignore technological developments of that era, led to it’s business diminishing over time and going out of business. Had Kodak chosen to revisit and redefine its purpose, perhaps Gen Alpha would also know the brand as a quality product and not just a case study.

So, on a concluding note, I urge you to reflect on your current goal (be it personal or professional), how relevant do you find it? What actions have you outlined and do consistently to meet your goals? In case this write-up has triggered some thought and yet left some curiosity, do not hesitate to reach out. As always, I would be happy to read your comments and help in any way I can.

Adios until next time.

#purpose?#teamgoals #leadership?#collectivegoals #purposefulexistence