It All Begins with Purpose
As I think back on my nearly forty years as a contributing member of the workforce, purpose was never really top of mind. It’s only been during the last decade that the concept of purpose has made its way into my working memory. Recently, I’ve made time to quietly self-reflect on the “why” behind my historical lack of focus on purpose, and it’s now obvious that my purpose was cultivated at a very early age and became woven into my subconscious mind.
During my formative years, my parents were both educators and performers. What amazes me today is that on the surface, education and the performing arts may seem like wildly different things, but at their core, education and performance art are integrally linked. To stand in front of a classroom and impart information in an engaging manner is very similar to winding up the courage to stand in front of an audience and share your gifts. In both cases, painstaking preparation is needed to acquire the necessary technical competence for a successful outcome. Also, the human skills needed to build confidence and competence are remarkably similar - communication, persistence, resilience, and mental agility immediately come to mind.
As a result of my upbringing and the natural talents my parents passed on to me, my purpose was set by the time I entered junior high school (yes, in the 1970s, they were called junior high schools in Wisconsin). I would spend the rest of my life learning, developing expertise in technical trades that piqued my interest, and passing that knowledge onto others through teaching, coaching, and mentoring. The conduit through which I would apply my purpose shifted through the years and took the form of bookkeeper, college instructor, entrepreneur, product manager, and business leader, but my foundation, my purpose never shifted - teach, coach, mentor, and hopefully spark a bit of inspiration in those around me.
Corporate Purpose
In late 1999 when I joined Kaplan – which would be my work home for the next 22+ years – I also didn’t need to spend time contemplating the fit between my personal purpose and the purpose of the organization. It never occurred to me - the fit was natural.
Back then, corporate purpose statements weren’t yet a thing, but mission statements were everywhere. For the majority of my tenure, Kaplan’s mission statement was the following: “Kaplan helps individuals achieve their educational and career goals, one success story at a time.”
I had the luxury and privilege to be able to drive to the office every day, secure in the knowledge that we were making a difference in the lives of thousands of humans around the world. I got to do that every day. It didn’t matter if there was a big budget meeting, business review, or some other form of corporate torture in store for me, because on any given day, I got to fall back on the knowledge that today we were going to help individuals achieve some type of educational “yahoo” moment. Even the worst days were softened by the comfort of knowing that my personal purpose and the purpose of the organization were aligned.
In retrospect, it would have been healthy for the organization to codify its purpose statement. Why? Of all the corporate framing mechanisms we will discuss over the next few months–purpose, vision, values, behaviors, et al–corporate purpose should change the least. In other words, purpose should be durable through time.
In contrast, the corporate mission can change over time based on changes in market/consumer dynamics, the scale/scope of product offerings, mergers/acquisitions, and the insidious effects of entropy. While the mission of an organization will shift more slowly than an annual planning cycle, it will shift as the business changes and grows. The rock or foundation the business stands on is purpose and stakeholders–especially employees should know what that foundation is.
Again, Kaplan is a wonderful example of this shift. Today, Kaplan’s mission is to: “Empower students, professionals, universities, and businesses to keep advancing in an ever-changing world.”
Why the change? In the early 2000s, Kaplan was primarily focused on consumer-based exam preparation for myriad entrance exams and professional licensures, designations, and certifications. Today, the company’s reach is global and spans individuals, institutions, and corporations. However, if you peruse their website, the organization's purpose has not changed.
The company’s culture page shows that the firm’s purpose is still grounded in helping to make the world a better place through education. To the best of my knowledge, Kaplan does not have a formal purpose statement, but it’s wonderful to see that from my new chair as an outsider, their purpose has remained remarkably consistent.
Stay tuned on this topic as we’ll compare and contrast purpose statements and mission statements in just a bit.
The Role of Personal Purpose
While we’re not going to get into a deep discussion of personal purpose in this muse, we’ve created the Personal Planning A3 exercise that you can use to explore your own purpose. Why invest time in defining your personal purpose? First, true personal agency and freedom is derived from knowing one’s own purpose. Not investing in the necessary self-reflection and educational journey that’s required to determine and understand personal purpose is a path toward a fixed mindset and the unwitting adoption of someone else’s purpose as your own. Purpose must be genuine and authentic.
Second, unless you’ve been blessed like I have with an upbringing that led to an organically defined purpose, understanding one’s personal purpose is essential for the alignment of one’s self to work, play, giving, and community support. In my book, Balancing Act, I talk about the benefits of bringing one’s “whole self” to work. It’s impossible to bring your whole self into work, philanthropy, or your seat on the local school board without having a keen understanding of purpose.
The global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has put a sharp focus on purpose for many people. Prior to the pandemic, many in the employment economy were punching the clock in jobs where their personal purpose did not align with the purpose of the companies they worked for. The Great Resignation, in part, has been fueled by an awakening to purpose and the recognition that life’s too short to be stuck in a job that doesn’t support or elevate a sense of personal purpose. My prediction is that purpose is here to stay as an important indicator of personal life and job satisfaction.
Purpose Defined
True to form, let’s start with the dictionary definition of purpose. From Oxford Languages, purpose is:
“The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.”
As a derivative of the dictionary definition, the questions that must be answered to define both personal and corporate purpose are:
Personal: “Why do I exist? Why am I here? How will I make an ongoing, positive impact on society?
Corporate: “Why does this company exist? How will our company contribute to a better tomorrow for its stakeholders and society at large?”
In our continual search for root cause, purpose is the ultimate root cause statement. On a personal level, determining and putting words to your purpose is a very deep exercise that requires the human skills of self-love, self-reflection, curiosity, courage, and compassion. In the boardroom, determining corporate purpose is a team sport that is driven from the office of the CEO with input from the senior executive team. Like its personal counterpart, a high level of human skill is required for the best results. Quiet egos, open ears, curious, agile minds, and courageous, yet compassionate voices are necessary conditions for success.
The Elements of Purpose
Purpose statements are:
Transparent: Purpose statements should not be shuttled away to an obscure corner of the website or stuffed in a drawer, never to be seen again. Purpose should be clearly visible to clients, customers, employees, prospective hires, and all other stakeholders in the organization.
Authentic: This is why purpose statements should be driven from the CEO and not delegated to HR, marketing, or a third-party consultant. Put simply, if the CEO doesn’t believe in and live the organization’s purpose, how on earth is Naomi in accounting going to interpret/understand the company’s purpose and make decisions about how her personal purpose aligns with her work.
Durable: Optimally, a company’s purpose statement endures through time. While it’s unlikely that the purpose statement will never change, it should be the foundation upon which the company’s activities stand. As we get into the practical application of this book, I recommend that the purpose statement be the first thing that’s discussed at the beginning of the annual planning cycle; but after it’s set, this discussion should be confirmatory and not controversial or drawn out. If you find that annual discussions regarding purpose are contentious, then it’s time for a deep dive to search for root cause.
Simple: Parsimony is key. Avoid flowery or confusing language that leaves the purpose statement open for interpretation. Purpose statements should be inspirational, but also be practical. Keep in mind that your investors, customers, and employees will be connecting and aligning their own purpose to your company’s. If stakeholders have to spend more than ten seconds trying to divine its meaning, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Conduits: When Max applies for employment at the firm, he will be looking to align his personal purpose with that of the business. Purpose matters to your most valuable asset - your people resources. Your company’s purpose statement is the beacon to attract individuals who have dedicated their life to the advancement of your cause.
Equitable, Inclusive, and Promote Diversity: Purpose statements should not be exclusionary. They should be welcoming and inviting to a broad range of audiences. One of your goals as a modern leader is to gather a diverse set of voices that challenge your thinking, drive innovation, exhibit resilience in the face of continual change, and row in unison once goals are established and execution begins. Although it may seem counterintuitive, it is not incongruent to hire for diversity of thought, gender, race, et al, and build teams that share and rally around a common purpose.
Connected to Societal Well-Being: The reader of your purpose statement should be able to draw a direct line between your company’s purpose and how your business will act as a force for good to benefit society in the long run.
Not Marketing Slogans: Purpose must not be a manufactured statement, but instead must genuinely reflect the “why” behind the company’s existence and “how” the organization will engage to aid and develop societal fabric. If marketing and/or legal wants you to attach a registered trademark symbol to your purpose statement, that should be the first sign that you’ve created a marketing catchphrase and not a purpose statement.
Purpose versus Mission
You may be wondering, “what about the mission statement? Does mission still have a role?”
Definitions of the mission statement abound and are wildly inconsistent. They range from a simplistic overlap of purpose, such as: “A brief description of why the organization exists,” to multipart statements that touch on purpose, values, goals, capabilities, and even legacy – far too much content to pack into one or two pithy sentences. Mission statements do too much heavy lifting and the resulting product can be confusing at best.
Therefore, my recommendation is that your firm dump the concept of a mission statement and instead invest time in establishing a purpose statement and combining it with the company’s vision, values, and behaviors statements (discussion on these topics to follow in future muses). Yes, you may need to maintain a mission statement for compliance, governance, or regulatory purposes, but it can simply be a derivative/combination of the aforementioned statements.
Should your executive team just slap the name “purpose statement” on its old mission statement? The answer is an emphatic no. The exercise of starting from the ground floor with fresh thinking is invaluable. Don’t take the easy way out.
The goal of corporate framing statements like purpose, vision, values, and behaviors, is to create and reinforce clarity. Framing statements should flow and connect to one another. Unnecessary complexity should be avoided at all costs.
Purpose Statement Examples
Here are some examples of purpose statements from a few large organizations:
The Coca-Cola Company: “Refresh the world. Make a difference.” It ticks all the boxes noted above. Six words total and exceptional clarity.
CVS Health: “We help people with their health wherever and whenever they need us. And we do it with heart. Because our passion is our purpose: Bringing our heart to every moment of your health™.” This statement is way too long. It’s so long it has no chance of being memorable or meaningful to the company’s stakeholders. An indicator that this statement may have been crafted by marketing or a consultant is the existence of the trademark symbol.
Kroger: “Our Purpose is to Feed the Human Spirit™.” The Kroger statement is exceedingly vague, to the point where I had to search for an explanation, which I found in a pandemic-related letter from the CEO to stakeholders. That clarification read: “...which means we are driven to do more and help make the lives of those around us better…” So with the clarification, I get it, but the use of the word “spirit” can be interpreted in myriad ways, and if interpreted through the lens of religion, it could be viewed as exclusionary. Also, why the trademark?
Ford Motor Company: “To help build a better world, where every person is free to move and pursue their dreams.” Excellent example of a well-crafted purpose statement. Bravo.
PwC: “PwC strives to build trust in society and solve important problems. It defines the difference we seek to make in the world–it’s why we do what we do.” In my humble opinion, this statement is also too long, and looks like a simple rebranding of a mission statement. In fact, the company’s About Us page on the website uses the language of purpose and mission interchangeably.
Walgreens Boots Alliance: “More joyful lives through better health.” Wonderful! Again, bravo.
Conclusion
I am fortunate to have spent the vast majority of my working life living my purpose. I’m grateful for the work early Kaplan leaders invested in cultivating a purpose-driven culture – even though the formal concept of corporate purpose was not yet well established. Looking back, I can now connect the dots in jobs I’ve had where my personal purpose and corporate purpose were not aligned. In those jobs, I felt like just another cog in a big wheel, punching the clock for a paycheck to make rent.
We all deserve rewarding work. My advice to individuals reading this is to make the time to contemplate and define your purpose. My advice to corporate leaders is to make the time to clearly define your company’s purpose and share that gift with stakeholders to improve organizational alignment and outcomes.
Have a great weekend…
Andy
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End Notes:
Kaplan Mission: https://kaplan.com/about-us-overview/
Purpose Statement Examples: https://purposebrand.com/news/best-purpose-statements-fortune-500/
https://www.walgreensbootsalliance.com/about-us/living-our-purpose-vision-and-values
https://www.pwc.com/us/en/about-us/purpose-and-values
https://www.coca-colacompany.com/company/purpose-and-vision
https://www.cvshealth.com/about-cvs-health/our-purpose
https://corporate.ford.com/about/purpose.html
