At the heart of establishing a wider moral purpose for your business, is the recognition that doing good and making money are not incompatible.
Your purpose resides in the intersection of your strengths, your passions, the company’s impact, and the rewards you can generate.
Knowing what intrinsically motivates your people, what you’re built to do better than anyone else, and where you can deploy that passion and talent to serve a need or solve a problem in the world is extremely powerful.
And the stats (particularly around millennials) support the importance of this. 81% of US millennials say a successful company needs a genuine purpose that resonates with people.
This matrix is from the book Conscious Capitalism Field Guide and provides an excellent framework for establishing where your moral purpose is or should be.
The questions you need to ask are:
- What is our business’s greatest strength? What do we have the potential to be the best at in the world?
- What are we most passionate about? What do we love the most about what we do
- Where can we have the most meaningful impact? Which big problems or needs in the world are we capable of solving?
- What would people reward us for? What products and services would our customers happily pay for (maybe even a little more if we could deliver in a more ethical fashion)? Note: 73% of US millennials are willing to pay extra for sustainable offerings.
By answering these questions diligently and honestly, a company can get considerably closer to defining its moral purpose and working out what specific actions are needed to enact it.
Do not write formulaic or glib answers to these vital questions. Dedicate sufficient time to the task.
When all four questions have satisfactory answers, work out how they intersect to generate your overall moral purpose.
Do not write formulaic or glib answers to these vital questions. Dedicate sufficient time to the task (I would recommend a full-day workshop).
When all four questions have satisfactory answers, work out how they intersect to generate your overall moral purpose.
