Why do you get out of bed in the morning? What are you looking to accomplish? How do you decide where to best spend your limited time and energy? Some of us are purely driven by the whip, meaning that others have decided where they need to be at what time to be doing what they’re told to do. Early in the industrialization era, it was often the case that very few had any level of agency in their lives. People were poor and the only option they had was to show up for work in the local factory or go without food and shelter.
That situation easily led to abuse, where people were easily forced into a life of servitude. In many countries, there were places where the priest of the local church ensured that the people in the town stayed uneducated and the local mayor and business leaders ensured that the people stayed poor. This led to unions, collective action and a gradual increase in the quality of life for everyone.
These days, if you’ve spent the time and energy to get an education in a relevant topic, you have tons of agency and freedom to decide where and on what to spend your time. Especially young people, in my experience, find this particularly difficult. While in school, your entire life is by and large controlled and you know what the rules of the game are, where to be when and what level of performance is expected. After graduation, the world suddenly is your oyster and you can do anything, easily leaving you directionless and confused.
Rather than becoming lethargic or simply jumping on the first opportunity that presents itself, I believe it’s important to reflect on what you want your life to mean. The age-old exercise of imagining yourself on your deathbed and reflecting on what you would like to have accomplished and experienced can be helpful, but in general, we all gravitate toward a certain direction. It’s just that the voice is very soft and you need to listen carefully and spend the time on figuring out what your purpose is.
The good news is that it seems to me that many young people these days have at least thought about purpose and are willing to stand by a set of beliefs, norms and values and allow these to steer their lives. I worry a bit about how easily many of them are influenced by social media and other sources of information that do **not** have the best interests of their audience at heart, but at least our youngsters are reflecting and making conscious choices. And over time, I believe that many who let themselves be led too much by their environment come to a point where they turn introspective and align their purpose with their innate nature.
Similarly, companies need a purpose. In my experience, many have a clear purpose when they’re started. The founder often has a sharp sense of direction and meaning, which drives the company to behave accordingly. Once the company grows and ‘professional’ managers take over, we often see a dilution of this sense of purpose and an increased focus on milking our locked-in customers for as much revenue as possible.
Traditionally, a company’s purpose was often seen as separate from its business operations. Even today, in my experience, many companies only pay lip service to their espoused purpose and focus on their real purpose instead: to simply make money. Especially in those that have grown large and are run by managers that have no relation to the initial founding, stressing a purpose is often difficult if not impossible as the employees have very diverse opinions and stating a purpose beyond a simple platitude will alienate part of the workforce.
In today’s world, and I expect this to become even stronger over the coming decade, the purpose of a company needs to be deeply integrated into everything it does. Of course, it’s essential for brand identity and customer engagement. Also, the modern generation of employees doesn’t just want to work for money but requires the company to give them a “why” they can align with.
There are many wonderful examples of companies that have taken this to heart. Patagonia famously ran ads claiming that “you don’t need this jacket,” meaning that if you already have suitable clothing, you shouldn’t buy additional goods. However, if you really need a jacket, please buy one from Patagonia, which, although expensive, will last many years.
Also, for all the criticism of Elon Musk and his role in US politics, the fact remains that his companies are extremely purpose-driven. Tesla was founded to free the world of cars with internal combustion engines and replace them with electric ones. SpaceX is concerned with making the human species interplanetary. Solarcity is all about using the sun to provide our houses with electricity. These companies act in line with their purpose and Tesla, within limits, makes its patents freely available for use by companies that seek to contribute to the same purpose.
Of course, none of these companies are perfect and they also focus on making money. However, more along the lines of the CEO of Wholefoods, we need to make money for the same reason that our body makes red blood cells – although it isn’t our body’s purpose, we die pretty quickly if we don’t.
Many traditional companies have an espoused purpose that has little to do with their day-to-day operations – there’s a huge gap between what they say (espoused theory) and what they do (theory in use). Modern companies need to embrace their purpose, beyond making money, and clearly put a stake in the ground as to who they are and what they stand for. Along the lines of Simon Sinek’s “start with why,” that will attract the right employees and the right customers. It will mean saying no, implicitly or explicitly, to employees and customers who don’t fit, but that’s the nature of a purpose-driven company. You can’t be everything to everyone. You need to make choices. To end with a quote by Richard Branson: “Purpose spurs passion, which fans the sparks that light the fires that fuel change.”
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