It’s not just what you are, but why you are
Author: Tim Williams
Over the years, business books have been filled with admonitions to create a “mission statement” that articulates your company’s reason for being. Decades later, most mission statements are still a mélange of vague hyperbole that hang unnoticed in the lobbies of companies everywhere.
What’s really needed in place of the tired mission statement is to articulate you organization’s sense of purpose. What is it that makes you and your associates get out of bed in the morning? Without exception, the most notable agencies have an ambitious reason for being.
The danger isn’t reaching too high, but too low
Barak Obama inspired the American electorate with the “audacity of hope.” Audacity is a good way to think about purpose, because a purpose is not only inspiring, but it’s exceptionally ambitious. The great Michelangelo once remarked that the danger is not that we set our ambitions too high and miss them, but rather that we set our goals too low and reach them.
The natural passion of purpose
The question of purpose is answered not by describing what you are, but why you are. Next time you’re on a flight surrounded by business people, one quick look around will tell you which ones are associated with an organization with a motivating purpose. While most everyone else is sleeping, playing solitaire on their computer, or solving the latest Sudoku, people who work for purpose-driven companies are usually working.
Because purpose is not about money, an agency’s “purpose” cannot be to run a profitable business. As Peter Drucker said, “Profit is not the purpose of a company, but rather a test of its validity.” He also believed that all people and all efforts should be focused on contribution – a meaningful end result that will make an important difference for the organization. This is especially true for knowledge workers, he says, who happen to be motivated by exactly the same things that motivate volunteers.
What drives us from inside?
Rather than being driven by external forces — the market, the competition, or the numbers — we have to pay attention to what drives us from inside. Our purpose has to be at the center of who we really are as an agency. In defining purpose, consider such questions as:
- Besides making money, why are we in business?
- What inspires us to come to work each day?
- What would we want to achieve if we knew we could not fail?
- What outrageous change would we like to make in our business or in the world?
- What is the meaning in what we do?
- What significant contribution do we make to our industry or to society?
- What kind of lasting difference do we want to make?
The agency professionals who are most enthusiastic and contribute the most to the firm are the ones who are given big goals and big jobs. The truly outstanding agencies are not just trying to make money, but in some small way change the world.
Download the Podcast version of this post here.
3 Responses to “It’s not just what you are, but why you are”
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Years ago in a seminar, I learned to think of what Guy Kawasaki calls ‘making meaning’ like this:
Vision.
Our vision is of a world in which something significant is different from the way things are now. For example: people can pick up healthy gourmet food as fast and affordably as a burger . . . critical defense and scientific files can be shared and backed up on a global network, so scientists can collaborate and the files themselves can survive the destruction of any major part of the network . . . where even non-programmers can use computers as easily as looking at pictures and reading plain English . . . where people can shop for merchandise from their computers . . . where people of all sizes can dress fashionably and comfortably . . . where every child gets clean water to drink and enough food to grow and thrive.
(i.e., the meaning, in Guy’s terms.)
Mission.
Then the mission becomes how the organization plans to contribute to that vision – in the case of clean water for children, by raising money for the children, or building water pipes, or manufacturing PVC?
(i.e., the business model, or at least the delivery system.)
Goals.
The goals, then, are concrete steps to get the organization from A to B.
I’ve never seen vision/mission done this way anywhere since, and the ways I have seen it have seemed 180 degrees backward. Also, the folks who taught the one I use made it clear that the exercise is internal – it’s not supposed to be a positioning statement.
(Especially given the way the more popular version produces a lot of identical statements about excellent customer service, generally spouted by outfits that wouldn’t recognize same if it bit them on the leg . . .)
Another thing I like about doing the vision first is it gives folks a way to reorient if technology or some other external factor takes away their primary delivery system or kills their business model.
Tim may be surprised to read what I’m about to say, because it comes from someone he’s only met twice and talked to only one or two other times. But here goes. I owe a lot of what my agency is today to him. His book, Take a Stand for Your Brand, was instrumental in helping me fine tune my agency brand several years ago. We were already 14 years old, but we weren’t yet truly defined. It was scary. Mostly because his statement of defining a true brand meant not only clarifying what you were, but admitting to what you weren’t. Ouch! But we did it. And because of it we are still alive, and much more pliable, flexible and adaptable to today’s new marketing options for our clients. I know this sounds like a testimonial, but it’s just the truth. How refreshing, eh? Thank you Tim,
Interesting stuff – and thanks for the props in your subsequent post.
What you recommend here chimes very closely with what I recommend in both of my books (Welcome to the Creative Age 2003 and HERD 2007 ), under the rubric of the “Purpose Idea”.
Great to see how a number of folk approach the same line of thinking.
Carry on!