Defining your organization's purpose is the first step to becoming a purpose-led company. In this article, Hubert Joly, the CEO of Best Buy presents 5 considerations that are critical for defining a powerful corporate purpose.
- A powerful and authentic purpose answers the four questions:
- What specific and unmet needs exist in this world?
- What drives and inspires people at the company?
- What is the organization uniquely good at?
- How can the company create economic value from this opportunity?
- In order to separate the “why” from the “what” and “how” - it is important to anchor the company's purpose in underlying human needs, rather than on the products and services the company offers to address those needs.
- The company’s purpose should resonate with employees and they should care deeply about it. Alignment of people’s passion with the company’s purpose fuels pursuit of the collective purpose.
- Engage and mobilise all stakeholders in pursuit of the company’s purpose. It is important to create interdependencies between stakeholders and crucial to solve for the conflict of interests that arise in the process.
- The company’s purpose should not be too ambitious or not ambitious enough, but just right. Articulate a timeless aspiration and go beyond customers to impact society in meaningful ways.
Inspired Companies’ insight : Articulating a beautifully worded purpose is only the first step. It is important to activate purpose and link it to strategy in order to bring it to live.
