ON TOPIC
M
uch organisational purpose
seems to have been built
around the assumption that
it involves ‘ top-down’,
CEO-driven activities. We
would like to challenge this
notion, reframe the model
and suggest some practical
tools to engage stakeholders
and employees into a real dialogue about what purpose
means for your workforce.
Purpose statements are increasingly common.
For example, BlackRock, one of the world’s biggest fund
managers, now describes its purpose as being “to help
more and more people experience financial wellbeing.
In pursuit of our purpose, a focus on long-term
s u s t a i n a b i l i t y i s e m b e d d e d a c ro s s o u r
business. BlackRock manages assets on behalf of
diverse clients around the world.”
The phrase ‘long-term sustainability’ has arguably
been demonstrated by BlackRock’s decision to start to
divest itself of fossil-fuel investments. In a recent note
to employees and shareholders, chairman and CEO
Larry Fink said BlackRock intended “to play an active
role in solving the climate crisis”, articulating a focused
directive to the whole organisation.
Similarly, Unilever’s former CEO Paul Polman
developed the statement: “Our purpose is to make
sustainable living commonplace. Why? The answer is
simple. We believe we have the opportunity — and the
responsibility — to be a force for good in the world.”
Why should organisations have a purpose beyond
profit? Purpose drives superior performance. In the
simplest terms, purpose is defined as ‘the reason
somebody or something exists’. Having a strong sense
of purpose has been shown to contribute to the
wellbeing and happiness of individuals. Furthermore,
Saïd Business School
STEVE MOSTYN
Steve is an associate
fellow and an experienced
designer and director
of senior executive
education programmes.
MARC VENTRESCA
Marc is associate
professor of strategic
management and an
economic sociologist in
the Strategy, Innovation
and Marketing Faculty.
O
Purpose serves to
motivate individuals
within organisations
and provide them
with an explicit
direction
research shows that those who align their personal
purpose with that of their organisation are considerably
more productive than those who experience the
absence of, or disconnection from, purpose.
Organisations with a clear and compelling purpose
consistently outperform and outlast their competitors.
Purpose serves to motivate individuals within
organisations and provide them with an explicit direction.
Unilever states that its “sustainable living brands” grew
faster than all other brands in 2019, a clear illustration of
purpose and profit aligning.
H
ow does purpose engage and instruct not
only ‘us’, but also wider stakeholders,
inspiring, reassuring and offering plausible
guarantees? Purpose as a provocation is not
only codifying what we do today, it also includes what
we ought to, and must, do for tomorrow and, after that,
reset the current unsustainable equilibrium of modern
day global commerce.
Colin Mayer CBE, professor of management studies
at Saïd Business School, insightfully comments in his
2019 book Prosperity: “With the emergence of the
mindful corporation, we could therefore be on the edge
of the most remarkable prosperity and creativity in the
history of the world. On the other hand, we could equally
be at the mercy of corporations that are the seeds of
our destruction through growing inequality, poverty and
environmental degradation.”
He later concludes that “the corporation today is
inhumane. It is inhumane because we have taken
humans and humanity out and have replaced them
with anonymous markets and shareholders.”
It is this challenge that we want to address to leaders
in business who wish to rehumanise the workplace by
engaging all on the topic of purpose. A good example
of deeper engagement is described well by Robert E
Quinn in Creating a Purpose Driven Organization:
“A higher purpose is not about economic exchanges.
It reflects something more aspirational. It explains how
February – May 2020 // 93