LEADERSHIP PART THREE – Why am I doing this again?
These topics just
get bigger and bigger. We’ve moved from culture to purpose, you don’t get much
bigger than purpose! As a refresh, see below for the eight critical areas and
behaviours which I think a leader needs to focus on if they want to be
successful in the 21st century.
- Build and reinforce the right culture (promoting gritty and growth mindsets)
- Have a purpose and be authentic
- Aim for alignment
- Reinforce an open communication policy (internal & external)
- Practice active listening (be curious and empathetic)
- Do not be the smartest person in the room
- Support and promote the team over the individual
- Have a plan and take actionThis blog is going to be a bit ugly, by ugly I mean I’ve got too much work on to ‘pretty it up’, so it’s going to be a bit ugly, but not any less valuable! And next week I’ll try and tackle authenticity…
Key Takeaways:
- Your purpose must be about helping, improving or changing something other than yourself
- You can develop a purpose over time – most people don’t wake up one morning with a clear purpose, you need to work on it
- Your purpose doesn’t have to be saving the world
- You can bring some of your purpose into the workplace through ‘role crafting’
- As an organisation, if you have a clear purpose and communicate it well, then you will attract the right employees, the right suppliers and the right customers. It’s that bloody simple
- Your goals must be aligned with your purpose, and you can manage and prioritise your activities around how aligned and effective they are in helping you achieve that purpose
A definition:
According to the
dictionary:
- the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.
- a person's sense of resolve or determination.
OK good, these make
sense and when I’m talking about purpose I’ll add that your purpose must
be external to yourself. Your purpose must be about helping, improving
or changing something other than yourself.
An example:
I will use myself
as an example - my purpose is in a small way help reduce anxiety, depression
and suicide rates by helping people improve their performance, find a little
bit of their own purpose, and in doing so become more effective and hopefully a
little bit happier.
I didn’t always have
this purpose, although I think it’s been inside me since my early twenties and
has only just broken free…
OK, so maybe I
shouldn’t have used that picture? I told you this blog post was going to be a little
bit ugly… Thankfully, my purpose isn’t ugly, it’s powerful, powerful to me at
least and that is one of the main points of having a purpose - it motivates you!
My purpose is
developing – a critical takeaway is knowing that you can develop a purpose -
and I don’t go to bed at night or wake up every morning dreaming of my purpose.
However, it motivates me, helps me keep focus (a big challenge today), and when
I consider a work project in the back of my mind I am conscious as to whether
that project contributes to my purpose. Rightly or wrongly I believe most of
what I do contributes to my purpose, which makes me happy…
What having a
purpose has allowed me to do is become more passionate about my work, find more
focus, improve my productivity, become more authentic and happier at work.
Will my purpose
help me be more successful and fulfilled? Damn right it will.
How do you find your purpose?
I’m not a
psychologist, and I haven’t been a performance coach for very long, however, I think
finding your purpose can be a journey. And if you are too focused on the result
it will take you longer to progress.
Contrary to widespread
belief 9 out of 10 highly successful people - who have great purpose - did not
wake up one morning and with a bolt of lightning suddenly find their purpose! Most
of the time, it doesn’t just happen like that – a lot of people develop their purpose
over many years (I have).
Obviously, you are
going to be interested in your purpose, it will have meaning to you and be
important (for you). You can have more than one purpose, you might have a personal
purpose and a professional purpose.
Your purpose doesn’t
have to be saving the world either. It could be centred on your immediate family or
your local community. Your purpose could be to improve your knowledge in a
certain area so that you can then use that knowledge to help your colleagues or
your local community…
Finding purpose isn’t
always easy, and if you’re like me you will need some help. If you’re looking
for a place to start you can always give me a call. Or you can check out the
link to my website below which has information on the GROW model as well as a
few questions to ask yourself which will get you started. NB: Sir John Whitmore,
along with a few others in the 1980’s, invented the GROW Model and since then
it has been borrowed, broken and put back together by 10,000’s of coaches around
the world.
Your purpose in the workplace:
As above, interest
and purpose are related and when you say it out loud it kind of seems obvious
that someone who is interested in their work is going to perform better than
someone who isn’t. Right? And if your intuition is a bit off on this point,
then please contact me and I can show you the evidence-based studies which prove
this fact.
When I was leading
sales teams if I had to choose between two candidates, and one was not as smart
but had more purpose, was interested in their role and passionate about the business
more than the other candidate then I would choose them above and beyond the
smarter candidate 100% of the time.
If you can bring
some of your purpose to work, then you will perform better. However, that doesn’t
mean you need to go work for a Non-For-Profit or quit your day job and become a
street performer.
One way you can bring more purpose into your work is by ‘role
crafting’. Dan Cable a professor of organisational behaviour at London Business
School, and the author of ‘Alive at work: The Neuroscience of Helping Your People Love What They Do.” talks about how to
use ‘role crafting’ to help bring some of your purpose, your interest into the
office – listen to an interview with Dan below:
And if your company’s
purpose, culture and value system misaligned from your personal values and purpose
then I suggest you start looking for another job! This is a nice segue into organisational
purpose…
Organisational purpose:
This one should be obvious,
and the more I research and study this topic, the more proof I find that
validates my - and many smarter people than myself - view that having
a clear organisational purpose, a vision or whatever you want to call
it, and
living and breathing it, contributes enormously to having an engaged and
motivated team.
An engaged and
motivated team will outperform a disengaged and demotivated team over 90% of
the time.
One of the earliest
pod casts I listened to on purpose is by Daniel Pink, he is one of the most influential
business thinkers in the world today. Along with thanking Dan Pink, and other
thought leaders in this space, we have the Millennials to thank for the shift in
organisational behaviour from many companies who have realised just how
important it is to live, breathe and promote your purpose in the workplace.
If you haven’t seen
Dan Pink’s TED talk or watched this 11-minute long animated video of his theory
on what drives motivation, then I strongly recommend you watch it:
As an organisation,
if you have a clear purpose and communicate it well, then you will attract the
right employees, the right suppliers and the right customers. It’s that bloody
simple.
Wake up we’re
almost there, one last thing…
Purpose and Goal Theory:
Organisations have
goals and more often than not they’ll have a goal model including high-level,
mid-level and low-level goals.
Underneath the
low-level goals an organisation will have critical activities, which the
employees need to complete to help achieve the organisational goals. Each critical
activity, low and mid-level goal is part of a cause and effect matrix, which if
managed and monitored correctly will help an organisation achieve its
high-level goals. These goals must be aligned with your organisational purpose.
An organisation can
manage and prioritise resources and activities around how aligned and effective
they are in helping the organisation achieve its purpose.
I think that’s
enough on purpose. Thanks as always for listening and feel free to share,
comment or contact me with any thoughts or questions that you have.
Cheers,
Gareth
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are those of
the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of any other
person, organisation, employer or company. The author is a consultant and
coach focused on improving performance. I draw on 25 years corporate
experience, a Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology and a Masters of Business
Administration.
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