Business and Organizational Purpose

What Is the Purpose of Business?

Your organizational purpose rests at the intersection of who you are and what need you fulfill in the world. It’s the underlying reason your organization exists.

We think of it this way: While mission and vision may change over time, your company’s purpose will not. Your organizational purpose is timeless. Purpose is a company’s reason for being, beyond what it does, makes, or sells.

Mission: What do we do?

Vision: Where are we going?

Purpose: Why do we exist?

Many of our clients seek to define their business purpose to gain organizational clarity, alignment, and meaning at a critical moment in their development. Some are navigating large-scale business transformation. Others are facing, or are in the midst of, changes in leadership. Still others are at an inflection point in their organization’s trajectory, seeking to turn around or accelerate their business.

To help you find your organizational purpose, we look beyond what you make or sell. We unearth human insights that get to the core of what you bring to the world. And we open the aperture so that you view your business and opportunities through a much wider lens.

Purpose must then be activated and embedded across the organization—in people and culture, strategy and operations, and branding and communications. Only after implementing purpose throughout your entire organization will your company realize the full impact on its performance.

How We Help You Excavate and Live Your Business Purpose

1. Discover. We start by excavating and uncovering the truth about your organization. We interview your people, rigorously research your existing messaging, and conduct surveys to better define and articulate the authentic strengths of your company. We then take an external view, bringing in luminaries to help us uncover the need in the world that your organization is uniquely positioned to fulfill.
2. Articulate. Drawing on the insights from our luminary network, as well as the organizational insights gathered through our rigorous fact-finding and analysis, we help derive your timeless purpose. We craft a memorable, authentic, and inspiring purpose statement and story.
3. Activate. Next, we look to your leadership team to begin seeding your purpose throughout the organization. We partner with your leaders to help them find ways to live your organizational purpose more fully.
4. Embed. As soon as leaders start embodying and championing purpose, it’s time to transform the entire organization’s culture, strategy, and branding through a purpose-driven lens. Purpose is implemented by fully integrating it into ways of working, enabling employees to become more emotionally connected and to feel a deeper sense of meaning in their work.