by Janus Boye
According to Sophia Zieger many organisations have a meaningless mission statement. Why is that and does it really matter?
In our recent member conference call, Sophia shared her perspective on the topic of working with purpose and asked some relevant questions like:
Can you measure the impact of an authentic mission statement?
What does purpose really mean?
How does the purpose impact us as individuals, employees, consumers and society?
Sophia is based in Dresden, Germany, and as a part of her role at software firm Staffbase, she works with HR and internal communicators to drive change.
What is purpose really?
As we covered in the call, having a clear purpose does have a positive impact on both revenue growth and attracting talent, but let’s first take a step back and look at what purpose really means.
In her opening slides, Sophia discussed what purpose is on both the individual and the company level and she used the below diagram to illustrate the different aspects, be it the personal purpose from the individual level or from the employee level. Similarly, you can look at the company purpose from the customer or from a societal perspective.
Diagram shared by Sophia to help us understand the purpose through different lenses
Adding some numbers into the conversation, Sophia shared these interesting stats:
83% of consumers demand that companies act responsibly
76% of Germans say that they would not start in a company that does not match their values
88% of Germans consider it important for employers to position themselves with a clear corporate philosophy and purpose
So what is purpose really? On several levels, the purpose can set the direction. It can answer why you get up in the morning, why your company exists, and why you spend time working at it. It’s all about impact according to Sophia.
Finally, there’s also a fake purpose. To quote from Frederic Laloux who authored the bestselling book Reinventing Organizations:
Often we simply wrap nice-sounding words around the products and services we offer... and ta-da, there is our purpose. Most likely, though, this is simply a "fake" purpose.
In our call we only briefly covered how to actually get to the true purpose, and we’ll cover this in a later chapter below, but let’s move onto some good examples.
The good examples of working with a purpose
In her presentation, Sophia shared three good examples of organisations who have a clear sense of direction and the impact they strive for. In other words, examples of genuiely purpose-led or purposeful companies:
To Good To Go is from Denmark and sells cheap leftover food from bakeries, restaurants, hotels and supermarkets. Their product is basically an app, but what they’ve really done is raised a movement against food waste.
Einhorn is from Germany and produces vegan designer condoms. A quick look at their website reveals a very purpose-driven start-up with this quote front and centre: “We are tired of complaining about unsustainable, harmful and greedy and ugly products and as entrepreneurs we only have one choice. Do a better job ourselves”
Mercedes Benz is a famous German carmaker and in the category of large, complex and global organisations. They’ve been asking employees why they are working with the firm. As it turned out, their employees really care about the future and the environment. This helped fuel their drive to make their supply chain cleaner and greener. Sophia quoted Mercedes by saying: “If you want to move the world, we shouldn’t destroy it “
As Marc Paczian from Dropbox shared in the call, this is not just a conversation for the younger generation. He mentioned how important purpose is to him, and probably also to many others, when looking for a new job.
How to do it
According to Sophia, it’s all about communication, in particular internal communication. She shared some of the communication deliverables that could be a part of the mix when it comes to living and breeding the purpose such as workshops, campaigns, structured interviews, onboarding journeys and CEO blog posts.
In our email conversation to follow up on the call, she emphasised that the the most important thing is to involve your employees.
There are several ways of doing so. She shared three steps:
First: Have as many 1:1 conversations as possible and ask your workforce what their personal purpose in life is and if they think they can fulfill it at your company
Second: After having many iterations from those conversations, workshops and so on, make a draft and let people participate in it. Ask them for their feedback and discuss it openly with them.
Third: Address the purpose, the reason why this company is here and the impact each of your employees has as much as possible and wherever you can. It is important to put the purpose statement into context so everybody understands in each situation what the company is aiming for.
In closing, to quote from Frederic Laloux:
Purpose is the thing that forces you to make choices.
Learn more about purpose…
On Harvard Business Review you can find two recommended articles on the topic:
You Don’t Find Your Purpose — You Build It. This one covers common misconceptions about purpose
Put Purpose at the Core of Your Strategy - It’s how successful companies redefine their businesses
Sophia also recommended this book by John Strelecky: The Big Five for Life. The starting point for this book was the question of what the greatest leader in the world would be like.
Finally, you can download the slides (PDF) from the call or enjoy the entire 28-minute recording below.