How Can Getting Clear On Your Purpose Improve Your Company?

This article was originally featured in Fast Company.

Imagine you have a client who sincerely says, “You have changed my family forever.” You and everyone on your team who contributed to this outcome will likely feel overwhelming pride and gratitude. You have been a part of an extraordinary business experience, and you will no doubt feel personally fulfilled. That, to me, is purpose.

Maybe we all don’t have the power to elicit this kind of life-changing feedback from clients, but that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t work to find—and create—that same feeling that our work has purpose and is purposeful.

Our work as leaders is to put this aspect of your P&L into focus—in this case, P&L being shorthand for “people and lives,” not just “profits and losses.”

It’s been said that “a job is a place where a dream goes to die,” and if you find that to be true, your organization may have lost sight of its purpose. The fundamentals of business are strategy, execution, and—especially for a service business—culture. Beyond culture is purpose, the creation of a deep sense of motivation and appreciation for what your work is all about.

Our role as leaders is to continually motivate a group of people to achieve things they didn’t think they were capable of and could not do alone, and then to rebar. Being connected to purpose propels that into overdrive.

KEEPING PURPOSE FRONT AND CENTER

I do regular CEO updates where I ask for stories from the front line. The story I shared at the beginning of this article is one from earlier this year. As the employee who was a part of the relationship told the story, she said she could never have imagined being a part of a conversation like that in her previous job.

As advisors, not every one of our associates serves on the front lines with clients. It’s important to me that we don’t distinguish between “front office” and “back office” when it comes to our employees. This open forum means everyone gets a chance to see and hear about the impact of our collective work as a team that helps our clients define and pursue the fulfillment of their legacies.

This kind of client feedback allows us to have what writer and purpose guru Simon Sinek (author of Start with Why) calls an infinite mindset. An infinite mindset takes the focus off of winning and the “finish line” and puts it on fulfillment—the idea that we are perpetually trying to get better and take our game to the next level.

Think of the sport of tennis. Borg and McEnroe; Agassi and Sampras; Federer and Nadal—these legendary rivalries illustrate perfectly the value of a worthy competitor to challenge you not to win a match or even end the year as number one in the world. For these champions, it was about elevating the game of tennis with each generation, inspired by the pursuit of the ultimate title: the greatest to ever play the game. That was their purpose.

HOW DOES PURPOSE PROPEL TALENT?

With your role being to keep purpose front and center, it’s important to always find ways to help your team see the bigger picture. At my firm, we talk openly about what it means to build value to last. For us, that is defined as a legacy company for generations to come. We don’t aspire to be the biggest company in our industry; we aim to make the biggest impact for our clients.

We talk about defining ultimate success in client retention rates. This means, for example, ending our careers with the same set of clients we started with. We ask how many of our clients are “raving fans.” These are clients who feel an affinity toward our firm because of the quality of care we put into the relationship and the ways in which we have improved their lives—often to the extent that they regularly refer their friends and family to us.

We strive to take what we do to the next level to enhance our client relationships until we are considered the best in our industry. That, in turn, reinforces high employee retention rates. People always want to be a part of the best team.  

Over time, we have recognized that the best-performing employees at our firm are not just great carriers of culture but are also very in tune with how their personal purpose is connected to the aspirations of the company. They are aware that they are part of building something far bigger than themselves or their own success. It’s an intangible that separates the great from the good.

DEFINING PURPOSE AS A LEADER

My role is simply to lead by example. I am, of course, laser-focused on our KPIs, such as profits, revenue growth, and the investment returns we generate for clients. But I have found the more I speak about my own purpose—the desire to help as many people as I can materially for the better, without expecting anything in return—the greater the clarity of our firm’s vision and strategy become, and the higher our client and employee retention rates have risen.

There’s a lot of talk about the role of purpose in business success. Sometimes purpose seems a little mysterious, like a secret alchemy that only a few of us have been able to divine.

If you find purpose elusive or struggle to achieve or articulate it, try to let your skepticism go. Lean into getting the strongest sense of clarity you can about your potential as a person, as a leader, and as a business. Focus on understanding how to fulfill that potential. Save your skepticism for a less meaningful goal like “being the biggest business” and focus instead on being the most impactful you can be.

That’s where you will find your purpose.