In our effort to be industry disruptors, Always About People (aap) likes to make you stop and think. We waited until January to give you this so it wouldn’t get lost in the December pile of uncompleted reads. We didn’t want to end up being the equivalent of the “mark as read” email that eventually gets archived without being read. We want to give you a gift in 2023: a concrete way to connect the individual people on your team to the Purpose and Vision of your organization, so you can ACTUALLY deliver this year, and find purpose and meaning along the way.

But first, the bad news: when people do not know their purpose in work and life, it can lead to a lack of motivation and direction, which can result in low job satisfaction and productivity. It can also lead to dissatisfaction and unhappiness in one’s personal life. Additionally, not having a clear sense of purpose can make it difficult for individuals to set and achieve goals, which can lead to a sense of stagnation and lack of progress. In the long term, not knowing one’s purpose can lead to a sense of emptiness and lack of fulfillment in life. Now take that lack of purpose and apply it to your organization. When people on your team do not understand their role (purpose at work), it can lead to emptiness. Oh crap! Have you ever considered that the people on your team (or family) may be feeling this way because YOU have not made their purpose clear for them? Have you connected their role/purpose to the purpose of the team or organization? Have you helped them see why they are needed, why they are here, how their skills and efforts move the organization forward? Have you helped them find their why at work? You must! Once again, we are going to refer you to the 1:1 as the ultimate answer, but we will share some stories first, and then specific steps to take in your one-on-one meetings, so you can see exactly what we are talking about and be inspired to bring purpose and meaning to work.

In 2019, a group of almost 200 corporate CEOs, including Apple, Amazon, GM, and many others, met at the “Business Roundtable”, and attempted to redirect the corporate mindset. Ever heard of it? Probably not, and we think we know why. They wanted to create new purpose in industry. Awesome! And it sounded good, in theory. Corporations had been led by the Friedman idea of “Stockholder primacy”, or shareholder primacy (maximizing profit is the highest good). This philosophy was accepted in the business world in the 1970s and 1980s, and many corporations adopted it as their primary guiding principle. But before you judge adopters of this philosophy too harshly, keep in mind, the 1970s was economically challenging for the US, characterized by an oil crisis, high inflation, high unemployment, high interest rates, and slow economic growth. But after corporations started applying this mindset, several negative impacts, we call them unintended consequences, were observed. One of the most notable is that companies began to prioritize short-term financial gains over long-term sustainability and responsibility. This led to results like “income imbalance” (a nice way to say C-suite astronomical salaries compared to the working poor who barely have a livable wage) and environmental issues. Additionally, the focus on maximizing shareholder value has been criticized for encouraging corporate leaders to engage in unethical and illegal activities, such as accounting fraud and insider trading, to boost short-term stock prices. But the negative effect we at aap see most, as we help organizations throughout the country, is the lack of investment in employees and communities. A lack of investment in people. We do not believe people are our “greatest asset” because most assets depreciate, but rather, we think people should be our greatest investment (think appreciation), but back to the story…. All of these consequences led to a loss of trust in corporations and a general erosion of corporate social responsibility. Maybe we should rephrase that to make it more personal: a general erosion of leadership responsibility, an erosion of character. Big decisions are made with a pattern of small steps. We hope we are all learning from this and evolving in business. At aap, we are inspired by the more recent trend of “stakeholder capitalism”, where companies are expected to serve not only the shareholders, but also other stakeholders like customers, employees, suppliers, and communities, which we hope lead to better outcomes, but then there’s that whole unintended consequences thing that keeps circling every decade, so no one knows for certain until we are there. But back to 2019…. So, this group of CEOs decided to make a shift to Stakeholder Capitalism. Surprisingly, their declaration did not have exact steps to follow. The focus, according to their website, was more like a vague idea of improving pay and training and education for employees. This ambiguity was most likely due to each corporation having their own particular ideas and methods for improving the corporate mindset. Remember, they were BIG companies with BIG Boards and BIG revenues, and let’s be honest, when was the last time you saw a group of 200 powerful leaders quickly agree on the exact steps that need to be taken for all of them? That would require a LOT of time and effort to unify at that level. We would like to hope they went back to their individual board rooms and made changes, and everyone agreed to move forward with a redirected purpose that was shared with every employee, so each employee could see how their role impacted the purpose and vision. Do you think they went back and took that new purpose all the way down to the individual employee? Do you think those employees found new purpose in their role? Fingers crossed, right? Well, we’re about 4 years in and, except for remote work options in response to a pandemic, we at aap are not convinced we have seen much corporate-change-of-heart from organizations trying to value the employees and communities as much as the stockholders. We’re not convinced the Business Roundtable connected anyone’s Role to this Purpose. But big change takes time, so we hope, and we act where we can: aap would like to take the initial good intentions behind the declaration and give that broad concept some individual legs to walk on for the evolution of your own organization. We want to help connect you to real and transformative purpose. In our last article we mentioned the importance of tying a person’s role to the Purpose (Vision or The Why) of the organization:

Finding higher meaning in work is a generational shift we at aap are thoughtfully weighing when advising our clients. A purposeful meaning exists beyond simple financial return on investment. Discover it and connect it to each person’s role. It is imperative for a thriving culture. We cannot overstate its importance. The best way to connect the Purpose to each person’s role is through the weekly one-on-one. This is the crucial key in Purpose that too many leaders miss: take Purpose to the individual level! It’s one thing to have a meaningful organizational purpose, but if it can’t be directly connected to the individual’s role, it won’t mean much. Lofty purpose statements may sound admirable at first but provide little sustainable motivation to employees who realize their personal contribution has no effect on unattainable goals. Help them connect their individual skills and strengths to the Purpose of the organization. A compelling and connected purpose may be the reason Gen Z’ers are still working with you 10 years from now, despite offers to work elsewhere for more money.

This month we want to get even more practical, and give you examples and suggestions for helping people connect their specific role and responsibilities to the Purpose of your organization. It is not enough to just memorize the Purpose Statement! You HAVE to be able to relate what YOU do to the Purpose of the organization, in order to feel like what you do matters. You HAVE to know exactly how your contribution to the team enables the team to reach the goal. We explained the psychology behind this, called The Perception of Dispensability, in a previous post. Without this connection, we are rudderless, working to just get by, even “quiet quitting” and spiraling in engagement surveys. Without this connection, it can lead to emptiness at work. And what’s worse, without this connection to purpose, we will see globally impactful events like Enron and FTX continue to happen.

But now, the good news. One of our clients at aap, a Title company, recently had a networking event where administrative employees were able to experience the purpose of their work. They were able to meet some of the people, real estate agents, who benefit from what the employees do each day (agents have buyers and sellers, and the Title company staff make sure those buyers and sellers are taken care of). The Title employees saw the outcome of what they do, the impact it has on other humans, and it mattered! It matters to the recipients of that effort, the people who now own homes to care for their families because of the effort given by those Title employees – people who have a place to live, work, sleep, laugh, and love. And the employees who work to make that a reality got to see the fruits of their labor, got to experience the highest good, the true purpose of their work. Consequently, they became “salespeople” for their Title company because they were able to connect their work to the true Purpose, which was ensuring that people have a safe place to care for each other. They have become brand ambassadors for the organization; they believe in the Purpose and can connect it to what they do every day. The employees were excited to see the company Purpose lived out in the actual lives of other humans. They experienced true MEANING in their work. In another example, mortgage employees were getting a picture and brief description attached to their paperwork (those homeowners voluntarily submitted the additional info after approvals had been received). Same results there – employees had an overwhelming sense of joy in experiencing the true Purpose, the higher good, in their work. It’s always about people.

And here is your gift to unpack: Create a way for your employees or team members to hear or see the stories of who is benefitting on the other side of the work. It’s always about people. Can leaders implement an annual or quarterly or weekly process so employees can experience, or at least hear, those stories? Leaders need to meaningfully connect employees to the customer or client if they are not out “in the field”. That may mean having employees in the field come back with stories and pictures to share with the rest of the team. It could possibly mean a “ride along” of some kind, to show employees who are not working directly with customers, how important it is for them to experience the purpose of the work; how important it is for them to experience the people their work affects. There are simple steps to make this a reality for your team, no matter what industry you are in.

FIRST STEP

Align your Purpose/Vision with a higher good: improved lives, goodness in the world, needs being met, creativity being sparked, souls being delighted. Not just the best gadget, but what does that gadget DO to improve people’s lives? It’s always about people. Not just a home builder, a builder of safe places where people can flourish; not just a pen maker, but a maker of tools that let the world write its thoughts for better mental health. What is the higher good that can unite your entire company and serve your customer? (Did you know there are about 2000 years of historical influence on us in Western Civilization that enable us to even be able to ask the question, “what is our higher good”? That‘s a fascinating part of this whole discussion, but we will save it for another time.) If you do not have a Purpose Statement or Vision Statement, do that first. Start today. There are plenty of resources available to stimulate thinking, but if you need help, let us know. If you are a (mid level) leader who cannot create or change the organization’s Purpose Statement, then create a purpose statement for your team that aligns with the organization, but gives your team a high purpose/calling to aim at the higher good for the world. If you are an individual contributor, share this article with your leader and see if you can create a Purpose for your team. If that is not possible, create a Purpose for yourself that inspires you to do your best work for the higher good, the transcendent purpose. You can ALWAYS take responsibility for yourself!

THEN WHAT?

After you know the organization’s (or team’s or your own) Purpose, follow the list below for ways to connect someone’s Role (what tasks are performed) to the Purpose (what is done corporately for the higher good). We want to help everyone be able to do this, so we are including ways to connect Role with Purpose, even for those who don’t have a leader or a team reviewing these with you. If you need to rediscover purpose in your own role, here are a few questions for self-discovery…

1. Why am I doing what I’m doing?
2. When I started in this role, what did I enjoy doing? What energizes me about this work?
3. If I run into someone I haven’t seen in a while and they ask me what I am up to, how do I respond in one sentence?
4. What do I do that no one else does?
5. Who is helped by my work? Who is the person who benefits most from my work?

You can re-establish purpose by yourself!

WAYS LEADERS CAN CONNECT ROLE TO PURPOSE in a one-on-one meeting:

1 – Clarify the Role
Clarity helps answer “Why am I here?” for the employee.
This is a written job description with as much specificity as possible. Individuals must know exactly what (and when) they are expected to do, in order to do the job well. Responsibilities are best aligned through strengths, so if you can align this role with the individual’s gifts, you are setting them up well.

2 – Clarify your expectations
People want to know they are doing a good job. Nobody wakes up and rolls out of bed asking, “how can I suck today?” If each member of the team understands what they are accountable for, an ownership mentality develops. This increases individual purpose. It can also give clarity to relationships between members of the team when they understand how their work affects team members’ work. Clarify your expectations. Expect the best and care enough to hold them accountable to what you agreed to do.

3 – Connect to the Customer
Create a personal connection with the customer/client even if you or your team never meet those people (refer back to the Title co and mortgage company examples). You may have to get creative here, but this is absolutely critical to connecting role to purpose. You may only be able to connect to anonymous customer feedback or surveys to find these connections, depending on privacy issues, and that’s OK. Work whatcha got. Not everyone will have the same response to this connection, so you will need to fine tune it to make it meaningful to each individual on your team, but that’s what leaders do, develop people. Helping people find meaning is probably the best use of your leadership. If you need help with this one, you can always reach out to us.

If people can connect their role and strengths directly to the higher purpose of the team or organization, in a way that is meaningful to them, that person will have more motivation to own the responsibilities of their role. They will understand their “why” at work. When people have greater purpose and intrinsic motivation, more effort is given, which ultimately means more goals are reached, more purpose is met. Don’t miss this connection. Too many have. We see it all over the country, and we are trying our best to change that. We hope you take this gift of connection and use it for its highest good this year!