Purposeful embrace leads to successful engagement and growth

It’s a mistake to think embedding purpose within an organisation is a project that can be delegated.

It’s a mistake to think that embedding purpose within an organisation is a project that can be delegated or handed over to department heads and that intermittent progress updates to the executive will suffice.

To do that inevitably will reinforce the longstanding scepticism that exists in so many workplaces: that the rhetoric of leadership when promising meaningful change is an empty promise that ultimately will not be delivered. Worse still, that the final product is a glorious fanfare of speeches, town halls, meetings and slick video presentations that eventually become reduced to fancy words adorned on posters, mouse mats and the mind-numbing screen saver.

This is the unfortunate folly of so much organisational endeavour in attempting to embrace purpose. The error is the inability to recognise that becoming purpose-led is not a marketing project, nor is it a learning and development initiative to be led by People and Culture.

It is a complex journey of transformation that needs to be infused in every corner of an organisation for it to be successful. McKinsey’s research into large-scale organisational transformation shows that only 30 per cent of significant change endeavours succeed. Critical to that success is strong and effective leadership from beginning to end.

Purpose journeys are no different: for purpose to be successfully defined and embedded within an organisation, it must be owned by the chief executive or equivalent. Only the most senior executive has the credibility, authority and influence to be seen as the genuine leader of such a significant endeavour.

When done well, purpose touches people deeply. It resonates with a yearning that staff and stakeholders have to know that their work is meaningful and contributes to making the world a better place. That engagement with meaning is missing for many people in the workplace and filling the void becomes the role of a collective purpose: to define the reason the organisation exists and explain the contribution it is there to make.

Becoming purpose-led within an organisational context is a significant transition for most businesses. It means that no longer can direction be dictated solely by growth targets and financial objectives, or that the highest order of guidance be answered glibly by a desire to “maximise shareholder return”.

Once embedded within an organisation, purpose becomes its raison d’etre. A deeper and more fundamental driver of direction and decision-making has been defined. This is one of contribution to something greater than the organisation: to customers, stakeholders, community or industry; or to enabling improvement elsewhere in the system or environment. This change is not one of tactics, operations, brand or governance. It is a transformation of hearts and minds for every person and stakeholder within the organisation.

Enabling an organisation to become purpose-led demands that leaders, executives and their boards are passionate advocates of their organisation’s purpose and that they recognise the inherent value proposition of being purpose-led.

The benefits are significant. Recent data gathered by Burston Marsteller shows that organisations with a strong, strategically coherent and well communicated purpose do better in their people metrics: engagement, discretionary effort and staff loyalty all improve significantly. Financially, they achieve up to 17 per cent better financial performance.

When the chief executive or equivalent is wholly committed to leading a journey of purpose from beginning to end and to embed purpose within an organisation, there is the potential for it to be successful.

Rodney Howard is an organisational consultant and co-author of Why Purpose Matters.