Aligning Purpose With People, Passion and Potential
What is the purpose equation? Why is it critical to success at the speed of change? Why is it fundamental to effective leadership?
Why must the purpose equation be entrenched in leadership development, management training and at every level in our lives and organizations?
Let’s take a closer look
The Purpose Equation:
Purpose = Profit / Success = Creating Value For Others
Intrinsic Motivation is a Key Success Factor. Purpose equals profit on a multiplicity of levels in our lives, our work, our organizations and our society. Once our need for food and shelter has been met, we each share the human need to contribute, to feel that we are part of a greater whole, a bigger purpose. When we subtract purpose from the business equation during a period of change and challenges, we get presenteeism, absenteeism, poor employee engagement and retention. When we subtract purpose from our life equation we either work on overdrive, get stuck in stasis or in a rut that insidiously and often silently erodes our purpose, passion and potential. We become cogs in a wheel, and whether we are rapidly turning, stuck in place or sliding backward, the grease that oils our ability is purpose; it is the intrinsic desire to contribute. Our ability to use the changes, challenges, stressors, even failures we face to build 3Q Skills that stretch and grow at the speed of change is real; doing so starts with championing the purpose that can help us learn, live and lead forward.
Leading Forward Means Packing A Purposeful Punch: Are your employee objectives purpose driven? Are your management objectives purpose driven? Are your strategic and organizational objectives purpose driven? Purpose speaks to the shared values and objectives that drive great leadership, great strategy, great teamwork, great innovation and collaboration, great communication. Purpose is also the linchpin, the benchmark that builds happier more successful lives. Great teams thrive when they have a shared purpose, great leaders lead because their vision and mission is purposeful, meaningful to their constituents, and great people use their greatest purpose, their most meaningful objective in life to transform changes, challenges, crises into opportunities to learn, grow and share.
Critical Success Factors Ensure The Success Of Organizations; Purpose is the lever that ignites success. External motivators are important, but internal motivators are the pilot light that champions our ability to go the extra mile to optimize our potential and the potential of others. Building emotional intelligence is critical to the self awareness and awareness of others that allows one to understand purpose in light of shared values and objectives. If we cannot understand what is purposeful, meaningful to our employees, our clients, our organization and we are unable to align our self with the values and objectives implicit in this purpose, we are riding a broken train that will ultimately derail.
External Motivators are important, but they must be balanced with purpose, with intrinsic motivators that engage and drive people forward; intrinsic motivators that build a bridge between what is and what can be by aligning shared values and objectives. Goals, objectives, quantitative performance measures will not thrive in a non-linear eco system of constant change without a purpose driven anchor. Empowering, enabling and actualizing our potential to use the strengths, changes, challenges, stressors and failures we face to optimize our potential, build new solutions, develop virtual and real teams of innovation and collaboration that take us forward cannot be sustained without a purpose that unites each team member and constituent.
The Present, Future AND The HOW will survive and thrive in alignment with the strength of their purpose, the fortitude of their ability to touch the heads and hearts of all constituents in ways that champion the integrity, humanity, courage and leadership that can take us forward individually and collectively. Business success is predicated on creating value for others, and our ability to do so will be marginalized if our organization, our leaders, our managers, our employees do not buy into a purpose that makes their work, their contribution meaningful.
Nine Critical Success Factors At The Speed Of Change Are Purpose Driven
- Executive and Employee Engagement: leadership, management, buy-in from staff; alignment of mission, vision, objectives that is purpose driven.
- Talent Optimization: Training, coaching, mentoring programs that build 3Q Skills that grow in the face of change, challenges, stressors and opportunities.
- Critical Success Factor – Internal & External Communications: Person/Person, Virtual, digital, cross generational communication and the establishment of Communities of Purpose.
- Collaboration and Alignment Of Purpose, Objectives, Strategies, Execution For Effective Project Management.
- Process, systems that use technology as a tool to monitor, analyze and optimize purpose, objectives & results
- Effective Sales Leadership and Sales Teams Creating Value For Clients And Constituents.
- Championing and creating a living, learning, thriving culture of resiliency, responsiveness, innovation, collaboration.
- Creating Value For Others: The alignment of purpose, values, objectives.
- Corporate Social Responsibility-CSR: Reaching out to the community in ways that establish brand awareness, presence and commitment to clients, employees and the community it serves.
Surviving and thriving in the new non-linear eco system means recognizing that purpose = profit. Purpose that is unclear, purpose that is not aligned with individual and organizational values and objectives, purpose that does not speak to the human need to contribute, to make a difference, to be part of a greater whole will not be able to withstand the velocity of change, challenges, crises and opportunities we face and will continue to face as we move from the age of information to the age of innovation.
Success at the speed of change means building skills and strengths that expand with changes, challenges, opportunities…and yes, even, stressors and failures. The writing is on the walls of our lives and organizations; being smart and fast are no longer enough, leading forward, communicating forward, learning forward means not only recognizing and actualizing our strengths, but using the changes, challenges, stressors and failures we face to build 3Q skills/strengths:
Q1-IQ (intelligence-focus-strategic thought-ability to learn-relearn)
Q2-EQ (emotional mastery-self management-relationship management-risk tolerance/resiliency, communication)
Q3-SQ (values alignment/positive purpose, integrity of thought communication and action)
Our ability to see our jobs, our careers, our lives with new eyes, eyes that help us recognize their purpose; eyes that help us build Communities of Purpose within our organizations is the way forward. The formula for success is timeless; create value for others. Creating value for others in a non-linear eco-system where change, challenges, competition and opportunities will increase means paying attention to and championing the purpose that drive our individual and collective commitment to success at the speed of change!