The Heart and Soul of Success

No matter how you measure organizational success, it begins with a clear purpose that is supported by strong values.

Conscious Capital Radio

Listen to a practical discussion about conscious leaders and how they bring purpose to life in their organizations and their unique leadership style.

Recorded on Conscious Capital Radio in Washington DC

An Inspirational Purpose and Clear Vision to Achieve It

Purpose is not just a lofty ideal; it has practical implications for your company’s financial health and competitiveness.

People who find meaning in their work don’t hoard their energy and effort. They give them freely, defying conventional wisdom about economic self-interest. They grow rather than stagnate. They do more—and they do it better. By tapping into the power of purpose, you can transform an entire organization.

Many executives avoid working on their firms’ purpose. Why? Because it defies what they learned in business school and their experience working in non-purpose driven organizations where work is fundamentally contractual, and employees will seek to minimize personal costs and effort. In these traditional business cultures, overarching values and higher purpose become empty words. But the research on truly purpose-driven companies point to many benefits:

  • Higher profits in good times
  • Better resilience in tough times
  • Highly engaged employees
  • Loyal customers and enthusiastic brand supporters

Larry Fink Chairman & CEO BlackRock put it this way:

“Without a sense of purpose, no company, either public or private, can achieve its full potential. It will ultimately lose the license to operate from key stakeholders. It will succumb to short-term pressures to distribute earnings, and, in the process, sacrifice investments in employee development, innovation, and capital expenditures that are necessary for long-term growth. It will remain exposed to activist campaigns that articulate a clearer goal, even if that goal serves only the shortest and narrowest of objectives. And ultimately, that company will provide subpar returns to the investors who depend on it to finance their retirement, home purchases, or higher education.”

Discovering Your Higher Purpose

Articulating an authentic, inspirational purpose is challenging. We have spent years working with leaders and organizations refining the True Purpose® process to get to the heart and soul of purpose. You can count on us to guide you through a process of:

  • Meaningful purpose discovery
  • Inspirational purpose statement articulation
  • Holistic purpose alignment (individuals-teams-organization)
  • Integrative purpose implementation (aligning structures and practices with purpose)

Ready to supercharge your purpose? Contact us!

Guided by Values

“The real role of the leader is to manage the values of the corporation.”
-Tom Peters

If purpose is the ultimate “why” behind a business, values are the “how”.

Committing to organizational values, like committing to a higher purpose, can be a double-edged sword. When a business makes a public commitment to values and purpose it sets a high standard for leaders and employees to live up to. Failing to behave in ways that support purpose or express espoused values can quickly lead to cynicism, disappointment and disengagement from stakeholders. But if you want to benefit from the many advantages of being purpose-driven, holding to clearly articulated values is key.

Values Design Framework

In the same way that articulating authentic purpose is challenging, so it is with defining and communicating core values. We have helped many organizations create or update their espoused values in support of their organizational purpose and desired culture. Our Values Design Framework includes the following:

  • Discovery or refresh of core values through assessment
  • Bringing values to life with behavioral promises:
    • Measurable
    • Observable
    • Hire-able
    • Promote-able
    • Reward-able
    • Fire-able
  • Values roll-out and communication
  • Values integration

Evolving in a Changing World

Widely shared purpose and core values are the best alternatives to the command and control policy manuals and rule books of the past. Yet they too need regular review and updating to make sure they are still relevant to the business strategy and the shifting demands of the marketplace.

If you want to assess how well your values are serving your organization, contact us.