Infuse culture with more rigor
Develop academic partnerships
Launch org. health meeting tool
Scale up consulting practice
Launch org. health conference
Pat
Personality Type:
ENFP
Focus:
Stay focused on outcomes
Role:
Leadership/strategy - creative driver - ideas/communication
1
Answering the question, Why do we exist?, requires a leadership team to identify its underlying reason for being, also known as its core purpose. Jim Collins and Jerry Porras introduced the idea of core purpose in their book, Built to Last. They asserted that successful, enduring organizations understand the fundamental reason they were founded and why they exist, and they stay true to that reason. This helps them avoid losing their way.
An organization's core purpose—why it exists—has to be completely idealistic. Many leadership teams struggle with this, afraid that what they come up with will seem too grand or aspirational. Of course, that's the whole point. Employees in every organization, and at every level, need to know that at the heart of what they do lies something grand and aspirational.
In order to successfully identify their organization's purpose, leaders must accept that all organizations exist to make people's lives better.
To inspire the dreams of programmers.
To help poor, first generation Americans find good jobs so they can buy nice homes and send their kids to college.
To give consumers financial freedom and flexibility.
To build a better town by forming neighborhood clubs, partnering with civic groups, and employing students in our community.
2
The answer to this question, How do we behave?, is embodied in an organization's core values, which should provide the ultimate guide for employee behavior at all levels. This too is an area that Collins and Porras addressed in Build to Last. In their research, they found that enduring, successful companies adhered strictly to a fundamental set of principles that guided their behaviors and decisions over time, preserving the essence of the organization.
An organization's core values are inviolable, enduring, unimpeachable, and deeply ingrained organizational principles, the very foundation of a company's culture.
Passion
Humility
Trustworthiness
Sawdust in the Veins
Handshake Integrity
Driven to Win
Humble
Hungry
Smart
3
The last question, What do we do? may be the simplest to answer of the six and takes the least amount of time and energy to address. The answer lies at the opposite end of the idealism scale from why an organization exists and is nothing more than a description of what an organization actually does. No flowery adjectives or adverbs here. Just an unsexy, one-sentence definition. The answer to this question is something we call an organization's business definition (but never a mission statement!).
If an organization's reason for existence answers the question, Why?, then its business definition answers the question, What? It's critical that it be clear and straightforward. It should not be crafted so that it can also be used in marketing material. The point is just to make sure the team is crystal clear about, and can accurately describe, the nature of the organization's business so that they don't create confusion within the rest of the company or, for that matter, in the market.
We generate and deliver electrical and natural gas products and services to people throughout the state.
We provide payment products and extend credit to consumers.
We design, manufacture, marker and sell athletic shoes, apparel, accessories and equipment.
4
The question, How do we succeed?, is essentially asking, What is our strategy? Unfortunately, more than any word in the business lexicon, strategy is one of the most widely employed and poorly defined. Executives, consultants, and scholars use it to mean so many different things that it has become almost meaningless without a clarifying definition each time it is cited.
An organization's strategy is simply its plan for success. It's nothing more than the collection of intentional decisions a company makes to give itself the best chance to thrive and differentiate from competitors. That means every single decision, if it is made intentionally and consistently, will be part of the overall strategy.
The best way for an organization to make strategy practical is to boil it down to three strategic anchors that will be used to inform every decision the organization makes and provide the filter or lens through which decisions must be evaluated to ensure consistency. Strategic anchors provide the context for all decision making and help companies avoid the temptation to make purely pragmatic and opportunistic decisions that so often end up diminishing a company's plan for success.
