Purpose has a number of meanings with respect to our service of others.
ON purpose, in this case, means doing something with very definite intent, not accidental, clearly planned and executed.
WITH purpose, in our thinking here means having very clear reasoning behind WHY we are doing what we are doing. This must be a perspective of what matters to the person we are serving. NOT about us, clearly about the other person and their objectives.
We ended the last discussion about purpose with examples from Apple and the Naval Academy. The organizational aspect of PURPOSE was pretty clear from those two examples. While there are really no right or wrong purpose statements there are those that embrace the goal more completely. In the world of Microchip, we have embraced the PURPOSE concept closely over the recent past and established our PURPOSE perspective. It is…..
“Empowering innovation which enhances the human experience by delivering smart, connected and secure technology solutions.”
Let’s dig into it a bit….
It is client-facing…. “empowering innovation (theirs)”. Big world aspirational…” enhancing the human experience”. Specific to the needs that the client has in technology solutions.
In every case, the value that a PURPOSE has is that it brings together all of the strategies, tactics, and actions with a clarity of focus on how we serve our clients, our team; all those that we serve. It gives us a way to ask the question about all things…” how does this serve the PURPOSE?
When tasked with creating clarity inactions, or strategies to create outcomes that matter, we can put the PURPOSE screen in place to make sure that what we are doing will serve it well.
All of this applies to understanding and supporting our own company’s PURPOSE… and it digs into how we can have conversations with those that we serve about the PURPOSE at the base of their own organization. And if you want to get really deep into UNDERSTANDING a client you will work this same discussion into the personal PURPOSE of those that you are interfacing with.
For an organization to effectively serve it must have its WHY. It must have a PURPOSE or it languishes in the quarterly report jungle of me too data. PURPOSE as great power IF you give it legs. It must be talked about, everywhere, all the time. It must be the key measure of darned near every topic. The question must be…” how does what we are planning benefit our PURPOSE?” It must have a “practical idealism” about it as a yardstick to measure the effectiveness of our processes and outcomes.
And that is just the “organizational” part of PURPOSE…. Wait until we get into the personal side of PURPOSE. A lot of introspection will be needed and examined as we get into our personal WHY.
OK, LET’S ROLL….on to our personal PURPOSE!
Mitch
