CorePurpose™: Determining your Why
Culture Czars CoreChart™ showing the CorePurpose™ in the center of the chart
Many companies have core values posted on the wall but have not created a valued culture where the individual, their teams, the company and all its stakeholders thrive so that they can be the best that they can be. But before we dive deeper into core values, let’s discuss the crux upon which those values are built: your CorePurpose™.
In a 2018 study by Mercer, The Global Talent Trends Study, almost 8,000 business executives, HR professionals and employees from 21 industries determined 3 factors for the creation of a successful and efficient workforce:
Workplace/schedule flexibility
Commitment to health and well-being
Working with a purpose
This same study revealed that employees were three times more likely to work for a company with a strong sense of purpose.
Now we arrive at our topic for this blog: How do you determine your Why or CorePurpose™? Determining your CorePurpose™ is an integral step in the shift from simply having core values to having a truly valued culture, providing a legacy from which to build and develop a solid culture. A company’s purpose is the overarching company goal and reason for being. What’s more, it tells your employees what they are working toward and why, motivating and energizing them along the way.
While it may seem like a no-brainer, it is important to take a step back and ask the some questions about your business and observe your answers from a bird’s eye view.
First, look back.
What has your company done? (Describe your product or service delivered)
How many have you done? (Service units or products delivered)
Who have you done it for? (End user customer or client segment served)
Next, consider where you are now.
What are you doing now and for whom? (Has this changed from the historical business above)
Then, look to the future.
What will you do by (date)
Who will you do it for and how many?
Why will you do it?
Until you come up with a statement like the owners of SABRE brand pepper spray: “To protect and save 70 million lives by 2021” or the owners of a plastics company that came with up with “By 2020 we will have helped 10,000,000 families stay beautiful, clean and healthy so that they feel fantastic everyday” based on the parts that they were making and the customers they were serving
It is important to go through these questions so that your CorePurpose™ addresses all the big strategic questions: what, when, why, how and (most importantly) why you do what you do in your company. Also looking back to look forward tips your hat to the past and adds to the magnitude of what you will do by a date in the future. Only with a numeric goal and a specific future date will you and your team know what you are all trying to achieve and know when you have arrived.
Erin Diehl, Founder and CEO of improve it!, completely transformed her company’s CorePurpose™ using these prompts. When I asked her what she does, she responded “We host improv training sessions for corporations.” I followed up by asking why she does this. She answered “To break down professionals’ internal barriers. To get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” To push her further, I asked “Why?” She answered simply, “Because it helps people grow.” “Why?” I inquired. “So that they become better versions of themselves, professionally and personally.” Ahh that’s good, I thought. “So you do what you do at improve it! because it helps people become better versions of themselves?” She nodded enthusiastically, and we agreed that this was a much more compelling answer than her original one.
From there we went on to discuss the quantifiable measures and before we knew it, we arrived at her company’s CorePurpose™: by 2021, improve it! will have trained thirty-thousand people in our live improv training sessions so that they can become better versions of themselves and keep growing personally and professionally.
Once you are able to spell out your CorePurpose™, your employees are sure to have a newfound reason to believe in what they are doing, and love why they work. In the case of improve it!, imagine how her trainers feel once they realize they are helping people become better versions of themselves as opposed to “hosting improv training sessions for corporations”. We are humans with feelings, a fact often ignored by organizations in pursuit of more corporate goals. But ultimately all that matters is the way we feel. And if we feel good in our work, with our teams and about our organization, all efforts become aligned and extraordinary results are achieved. Could you ask for anything better?
Continue exploring CultureCzars.com to discover more about establishing your CorePurpose™. You can use The Culture Fix® Workbooks to guide your development, check out some cautionary tales about what happens when major companies like Uber and Wells Fargo lose sight of their purpose, and even sign up for upcoming workshops.