Everyday Purpose Management

A Drive Thru Approach on the Big P Word

After Covid-19 probably one of the frequently used words in present day business life: Purpose. The Big P Word.

Companies, communities, careers, charities, teams and individuals. They all need purpose. This article by Deloitte on the importance of purpose for corporations triggered some thoughts with me on the subject: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/marketing-and-sales-operations/global-marketing-trends/2020/purpose-driven-companies.html

Having read it, I wondered though: Why is purpose so important, yet so difficult to integrate into day-to-day life? How can I make purpose work for me, for my team, for my project, in quick everyday bites?

It took me about three minutes last week to order, pay and get my coffee in a drive thru of a popular coffee chain. No, I am not an influencer of the brand, but the colours and font on the picture opening this post will most likely tell you where I was. I can assure you: I don’t get paid for this. So here’s my challenge in this post today: to give you a quick overview in a three-minute read, covering three practical ways to implement and follow your purpose in everyday life.

1. Why?

Tell me, why do we have this meeting again? Why would you like to move to a different role? Why is it difficult to achieve your targets this year? Why questions get you or your counterpart thinking. Many discussions, team meetings, client calls or 1:1 meetings may cover the what and the how. But how many cover the why? Throw them in, those why questions. And observe, what happens when you do so.

2. Reflecting the day

One of the habits of effective people is that they are ruthless about prioritizing value-adding activities over non-value-adding activities in everyday life. They reflect on which type of activities are important to achieve their personally defined purpose, or their firm’s purpose. When closing down your laptop, tablet or smartphone after a day of work, take a few moments to reflect for yourself: How many of today’s activities and tasks were in some way consistent with your defined purpose? Which other activities did not seem to contribute to it? If the activities did not seem to pay forward to help achieve the purpose: why were they part of your day then? Be careful, since some of these activities might still be important. Not every task in your day-to-day job is directly linked to that overarching purpose. However, the predominant part of what you do should help achieve your purpose. By reflecting your activities each and every day, you will get a good feel over time on how balanced your purpose-led activities and your other activities really are. Some of those other activities might still be required, but some of them will carry a big opportunity: getting rid of them.

3. Understand your customer

For those of you in sales or business development, think back to one of your best sales in history. What made that customer sign that contract? Most likely, it was not only your price or your proposed solution that let them decide to work with you. In the reasons for customers mandating business to firms you will find a treasure of information which will tell you more about the purpose you fulfil for them. For those of you in non-sales roles, you will certainly have internal customers or stakeholders, which are important for you to achieve your goals. Why do they work with you, what are their aspirations, challenges or fears? And what is it that would make them excited to work with you? Capture your external and internal customer feedback, reflect on it and translate it to shape or review your purpose.

There you have it. Everyday purpose management in a three minutes coffee drive thru. Careful, contents may be hot.