Picture of Written by

Written by

Our Statius team

Articulate intent

As an owner manager there is a key question you might want to consider contemplating:

What is your (company) purpose?

I don’t mean to make a profit – that’s a result. When we think of an organisation’s purpose, we are thinking about the job you do for your clients and customers that they can’t do for themselves, and more specifically, it’s actually about the “benefits” and “capabilities” that you deliver for them that add value for them.

Incidentally, the first line of most management standards reads as follows (there are slight variations from standard to standard, but you’ll get the gist):

“The organisation shall determine external and internal issues that are relevant to its purpose and that affect its ability to achieve the intended outcomes”.

Interestingly, a company’s “purpose” is often overlooked by assessors, but it is exactly what all the processes should be aimed at delivering, so, we’d suggest this is actually a gross oversight to the detriment of the assessor’s work.

But before we take, before we dig into “purpose”, let’s take a step back and think about how purpose fits into your management system. We’d suggest that there are five principles that need to be mastered in order to develop an effective management system, they are:

  1. Articulate intent
  2. Know the flow
  3. Master the measures
  4. Engage the people
  5. Drive the learning

 

Elaborating just a little further on each to provide an overall context…

1. Articulate intent

This is about trashing out, articulating and promoting the “benefits” and “capabilities” that your products and services deliver to your customers so that everyone in the organisation understands what it is the system should be aiming to deliver.

2. Know the flow

This is the core of the system and involves producing flow charts or diagrams that show how the various parts of your organisation work together in order to deliver value to your customers. Work can then begin on examining the parts so that cost and waste are reduced and effectiveness and efficiency is increased.

Where required, codifying these processes into the relevant system, such as quality, health and safety, environmental, information security, or indeed, integrated management system.

3. Master the measures

Building the performance management and measurement system around the flow of work through the organisation with the aim of reducing waste and increasing profitability.

Looking at data using Performance Prediction Charts provides a powerful method for predicting future performance, improving performance and for making better decisions from better data.

4. Engage the people

Providing staff with the thinking, tools and techniques necessary to improve their activities, recognising that people work in a system, and a job of a leader is to work on the system, to improve it with their help.

5. Drive the learning

Learning to learn how to bring all of these ideas together in order to drive real, knowable and sustainable improvement.

In the remainder of this blog, and in the following blogs, we are now going to take each of the above in turn and explore them in more detail with real-life examples from real-life companies. So, let explore “purpose”.

Defining your “purpose”

There is a guy called Simon Sinek who has written an excellent book called “Start with Why” – well worth a read. If you have not got time to read, then I’d suggest looking at the 7 minute or 18 minute video’s on YouTube.

He suggests that all inspiring leaders think the same way. All he did was codify how, and he’s called it the golden circle. He suggests it’s the difference between why some companies inspire and others don’t. Most of us communicate from the outside in – the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. However, he is suggesting inspired leaders think, act and communicate from the inside out. He comments that:

  • All organisations know what they do;
  • Some know how they do it;
  • Very few know why.

 

So, if you can get to the “why”, that is the purpose of the organisation and communicate it. Where the purpose is defined, as benefits and the capabilities that are delivered to your customers and clients, the better you can engage with them.

The power behind this “inside out idea” (why first, what last) is that it replicates how our brains work. Because of this we get much more of an emotional engagement, as concentrating on “why” takes us to a point where we are no longer concentrating on “selling products and services”, but instead we are helping to solve a problem – the clients problem.

Also note “Purpose” is very different from Mission, Vision and Values. For further information on the differences, please request the Statius paper “Mission, Vision, Values… What’s the Purpose?”

Obviously, we apply this stuff to our own company, so we are quite proud of our purpose statement which is to provide:

  • Better strategies;
  • Better systems;
  • Better measurement;
  • Engaged people delivering…
  • Better results

 

We have even developed little icons showing each of the above as can be seen below:

Better strategies
Better systems
Better measurement
Engaged people
Better results

Articulate intent - real life examples

Let’s now take a look at some real-world purpose statements we have been involved in creating for clients:

Example #1

This first purpose statement is taken from a company designing and manufacturing one off products for fabulously wealthy individuals; they set their purpose as being:

“Satisfying your desire for unique, personalised, urbane luxury in your own home, workplace or super yacht”

I really love the “or super yacht” kicker at the end. It was taken from a flippant off the cuff remark made by one of the young designers. When he made the comment, everybody fell about laughing, but it really cemented the sense of the reality that the company we’re trying to create, so it’s stuck. I think it’s brilliant – just wish I had a super yacht!

Example #2

This example is taken from a small, owner managed, company designing and manufacturing electronic products that manage and control the environment within buildings; temperature, humidity, water temperature, light, etc. These products are then installed by building owners, distribution companies, property managers and contractors:

We help contractors improve their profitability by designing and supplying easy to fit products that connect seamlessly to a variety of building management systems (BMS) systems

Following some analysis work, it was identified that the distribution companies were interested in delivery reliability and price. They didn’t care how long it took for the product to get on their shelves, but they wanted their delivery date to be 110% reliable. In addition, they were vicious in driving down the price.

Contractors were the polar opposite of the distribution companies. The price was almost irrelevant, the focus for the contractors was the “ease and speed” at which the products could be installed. The price of the product was always going to be passed to the customer. Contractors were, by some considerable margin, the most profitable and least price sensitive segment of the market served.

The purpose statement was then developed to focus on the growth of this sector and to provide a laser focus on the two things that mattered to them 1) designing and producing the products to they were easy and simple to install, 2) ensuring the products worked with a range of BMS systems.

Conclusion

The purpose of the purpose statement is to:

  1. Provide a goal for the operational processes delivering value to the customer.
  2. Unleash innovation in order to better deliver those benefits and capabilities delivered to the customer.

 

We fundamentally believe that the core question any organisation must answer when communicating its purpose starts with its customers – what are the needs that the company is being paid to meet?

For centuries, theologians and philosophers have told us that seeking meaning is central to human experience, so it should actually be no surprise at all that Sinek’s TED talk, “Start with Why”, is the third-most-watched TED Talk of all time.

Your why, your purpose should become the focus for the day-to-day job, it’s what all your processes and procedures should aim at. All efforts should be focused on making the processes that deliver on your purpose better, slicker and quicker.

Related tools and ideas

  • Mission
  • Vision
  • Values

Recommended references

Downloadable references

More insights

Better Systems

Articulate intent

As an owner manager there is a key question you might want to consider contemplating: What is your (company) purpose? I don’t mean to make a profit – that’s a result. When we think of an organisation’s purpose, we are thinking about the job you do for your clients and

Read More »
Better Strategies

5 steps to business planning

Well, it’s that time of year again, the Christmas songs are out and I’m already out of Whamageddon, having heard that damn song “Last Christmas” on the very first day of December! All far too early for me! In the words of another famous singer, Mr Lennon, “Another year over

Read More »
Better Strategies

Mission, vision, values… what’s the purpose?

Many organisations publish their mission, vision and values statements but what is the purpose? The question above is actually two questions: The obvious one of “what is the purpose of a mission, vision and values statements?” The second is perhaps more interesting: What is the “purpose” of an organisation and

Read More »