A few years back, when talking about purpose in business started to become in vogue, a vocal brigade within the purpose zealots were touting a dangerous mantra.
“Do purpose, and it will end up making you more profitable”.
Within those circles, it was a foundational belief.
But I had real issues with this that I’d often debate on.
1) it’s wrong. Some of the most profitable companies ever created have never had a purpose beyond making their owners money. They were (and are) insanely profitable. Equally, some very purposeful enterprises don’t get off the ground because they can’t generate cash.
2) it’s unhelpful. By “selling” purpose on the basis that it will enhance your profits, those zealots unintentionally reinforced a rationale that the role of purpose in business is to enhance profit, not that purpose or values were good in themselves.
3) it undermines itself. As a consequence of the previous point, in positioning purpose as a tool in your kitbag for increasing profit, they guaranteed that when purpose lost its sparkle, it would be replaced by whatever the zeitgeist declared to be the he next voguish tool for profit.
4) it’s morally dubious. It also positioned the importance of doing good in terms of it coming back to you, in this case with cash.
Trump’s assault on considerations of climate and social justice within business has brought many of these points home in the most blatant way.
The profitability impact of purpose has been brutally threatened with his attack on “woke”. Being purposeful has become a challenge to the profitability of many businesses. He’s very publicly undermined purpose and progressive values in companies. As a result, many have been dropping purpose and values like hot potatoes…
… and are looking for the next thing that creates profit. Which for now may be riding the anti-woke agenda.
And that underscores my points above. The band of well-intentioned influencers and consultants inadvertently trained a generation of business leaders that purpose is a tool to enhance profitability and that this is the inherent reason to do purpose. They strengthened a business world in which purpose (whether real, or more likely only articulated) was only ever useful as long as it served profit.
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My own perspective, for what it’s worth, has always been that purpose, and more importantly values, are a matter of choice.
Purpose doesn’t enhance profitability, or undermine it. You could run a business with shoddy values, or one with positive ones. If you know how to run a business well, both could make money.
It’s actually more about what type of business, or department, or division you want to run.
So what do I take from this?
That we all get to decide.
We all can choose if we want our businesses or the units we run to be based on values and purpose. But we can’t for a second think that purpose or values will replace the need for us to also manage that entity well from a commercial perspective.
How we can support you
- Join us on a workshop on how to scale your company; create time to focus on the bigger picture; and keep values and purpose core to your company. For max 5 CEOs of companies with revenues between £1.5m and £15m.
- Subscribe to our Bite-Sized Business Tips - thought snippets for values-centred business leaders. Every few days, a short focussed read on a specific topic of how to lead a company that values both profit and purpose.
- Talk to us to explore how we can help you scale your company in the direction you want to take it.