Let’s Put Some Purpose Behind It!

Providing our teams with clarity around the mission, vision, and values that we’re working toward as an organization can be powerful! One thing I see many leaders struggle with though is keeping those in front of their team members consistently. From the start of this look at the importance of leading with a clear purpose, I’ve stressed that leadership is often incredibly hard. This is just one reason for us, especially when we’re leading a team, to be dialed in on our own definite purpose AND how the mission, vision, and values of our organization tie back to that purpose. Without this kind of definiteness in place, constantly pounding the drum about what we’re working to achieve as a team can feel terribly redundant - and that can get exhausting… But when we can put a little purpose behind it, sharing the mission, vision, and values with our teams might just end up being one of the funnest things we get to do each day!

Here’s what I’ll challenge you to consider: How can we, as leaders, cast a vision for our teams that truly exudes purpose? In complete transparency, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to do that over the long haul unless we’ve put our own purpose to words and we’re absolutely committed to delivering more than anyone would ever expect of us as we work to achieve it. That said, I don’t know many people who have earned authentic influence with the teams they lead who haven’t done both of those things, at least at some level. When a leader has that kind of passion about what they’re working to achieve, it shows up in nearly everything they do.

I shared before about working with the new owners of a local company to create a policy manual, and explained that they were very adamant that anything not explicitly required by some gubermint entity must tie to one of their five core values or we would remove it. Just recently, they’ve added a sixth core value. Since a large part of that business is public facing, and the majority of their competition provide mediocre customer service (at best), the value they chose to add was Visibility. And they didn’t just print it in a new version of their handbook - in fact, I’m not sure they’ve added it to the handbooks at all yet - they talk about it and exemplify it every single day!

Cindy and I have developed a strong relationship with the entire family who owns and operates this business, but I’ve worked the closest with the husband/dad. It would be one thing if he defined what visibility meant to him or what behaviors were necessary for team members to achieve that during their routines. Quite frankly, that alone would be far more than many executives ever do to ensure their teams understand the mission, vision, or values! But that’s nowhere close to what Craig does. I can’t think of a single time that I’ve been onsite with him where he hasn’t greeted everyone who comes near him. In many cases, I’ve seen him carry things to a customer’s car and help them load it.

Here’s where you may be thinking, “So what, Wes, isn’t that normal for the owner of a small company?” I’d love to think this is very normal but I haven’t seen very many examples of this over the last few years - in businesses of any size. 

Let’s compound that though… This isn’t a business with half a dozen employees. They have nearly fifty on staff, many of which are totally dedicated to doing exactly what I’ve seen the owner doing. Don’t miss my point here though, he’s not doing this because others are asleep at the wheel, he does it because this ties directly to his purpose for purchasing and growing that business. On top of that, he’s intentional about explaining why he does it - and the impact it has on every customer the business serves. With this in mind, let’s dig into how doing that helps us as we lead and how this helps the team members around us.

More than two decades after that scandal unfolded, we don’t remember that company for communication, respect, integrity or excellence but we most certainly remember the impact not coming close to upholding those values had on their shareholders! When my friend Craig began talking about visibility as the sixth value for his team, he used the word constantly in conversation and he worked to provide an example through his own behavior, but he was also very intentional about providing a clear and concise definition for how being visible would have a positive impact on every customer they served as well as the company’s bottom line. He didn’t allow room for anyone to develop their own picture of what it would look like.

If we had the chance to talk with folks who were with Enron in 2001, I’d bet many believed their behaviors were in line with the stated values. But without extreme clarity in how those values were defined, what I picture as communication could be very different from what you expect. The same could be said for the rest of their values, and it could just as easily be true for the values we hope our teams uphold! And to take that one step further, we have little chance of drawing the energy we’ll need to uphold even the clearest values if we don’t have just as much clarity around our purpose.

I’ve shared a fair amount of detail leading up to this point on how having a very clear purpose helped me and Cindy navigate some significant challenges since starting our business, with the gubermint shutting down the primary way we earned income in mid 2020 being just one of those. Having that level of clarity about the impact we wanted to make served as a strong foundation, but defining the specific behaviors that we’d need to apply to live out our values has been what’s made it possible to see that impact take shape!

Defining what our purpose looks like sets the tone for building clarity around our mission, vision, and our values. When we, as the leaders in our organizations, have this in place for ourselves, we can build a culture that provides each team member with the kind of understanding they need to make the same connection. We can’t just assume they’ll latch onto it by reading or hearing our words, or even by watching what we do. We’ll need to be very intentional about providing them with a specific definition for each part.

Building Purpose into a Culture Relies on the Leader

I recently read an article a friend published on LinkedIn called “Why ‘Purpose’ Might Not Be the Answer (and What to Do Instead)” where he opened by saying “lofty purpose statements can feel abstract and disconnected from employees’ day-to-day tasks. Shared challenges, on the other hand, are specific and directly impact everyone’s work.” I think, at least as it relates to the vast majority of organizations, his point couldn’t be more accurate. And that really emphasizes the importance of defining what our purpose looks like; for ourselves, our entire organization, and each of our team members!

Think back to what I shared before about those fancy mission statements that looked and sounded profound, but had no real connection to what anyone in the company actually did. I see no difference whatsoever in what my friend wrote about a lofty purpose and the eloquently stated and framed missions and visions hanging on far too many corporate lobby walls. In each of these cases - with a mission, vision, values, or even purpose - the responsibility does indeed fall on the leader to craft a crystal-clear definition that can be exemplified and articulated during nearly every interaction we have with our teams!

Through a quick internet search, I found a blog on UseMotion.com called “The Poetry of Purpose: Inspiration Purpose Statement Examples” that shared the mission, values, and purpose statements behind those golden arches we all know as McDonald’s. If I’m being honest, I haven’t seen anything remotely resembling even a piece of what was listed in a long stinking time! There wasn’t a single word about the milkshake machine being broken, getting the wrong order in the drive thru, or cautioning me about eating their burgers since horses make me sneeze… While I’m (kinda) joking, I’d bet you’re tracking with me! I distinctly remember our last pit stop at one for a quick bite during a road trip where our only option for ordering was a kiosk that was less than cooperative while a few employees leaned against the wall and were visibly annoyed that they had to bag up our food once we finally got the order to process. So much their purpose being “to feed and foster communities” and their mission of “making delicious feel-good moments easy for everyone.” I assure you that what we choked down was anything but delicious…

The blog went on to share various examples of purpose statements. Some were simple enough that even I could develop a reasonable understanding of what they likely meant and some certainly fell into that “lofty, abstract, and disconnected” category my friend referenced. Regardless of what words we choose though, the leader touting them must have clarity around them personally and be able to provide a detailed understanding of what the behaviors necessary to back them look like to everyone involved for the purpose to become part of the culture. And to be able to do that, we’ll need to become effective at painting a picture of exactly how those behaviors tie in with each statement we want our team to rally around - so we’ll pick up there soon.