Why we need to unpick purpose

Positioning. Sustainability. Meaning. All positive drivers of business success.

Is purpose an indulgence business can scarce afford faced with more immediate challenges in the wake of Covid? It’s a question Pimento explored in a recent panel discussion I had the pleasure of being part of. ‘Can we afford purpose in a pandemic?’ inevitably required us to begin by defining what we mean by purpose in the first place. 

The timing was interesting, coming just a few days after news of the departure of Danone’s CEO Emmanuel Faber. Opinion seemed to suggest this was because he was ultimately unsuccessful in trying to balance his purpose-led vision with shareholders’ desire for growth. 

Purpose as positioning.

I’ve been on my own love-hate journey with the notion of purpose in business. Or perhaps more specifically with the word and its connotations. When is purpose not just positioning? Isn’t purpose simply about bringing clarity to why your business exists? Knowing what problem you’re here to solve or need you’re here to meet is a powerful tool which can give a business focus, ambition and momentum. It’s intrinsically linked to how you generate revenue and drive scale.  In this sense anyone seeking to position purpose and profit as binary choices is missing the point.

So far so good. But the rise in the use of the word purpose as the way we think about giving business strategic clarity and focus, comes hand in hand with two other forces in business which are important and powerful in their own right.

Purpose as sustainable business practice.

First up, the need for the business world to look to its environmental and social credentials, and ensure that whatever need it meets and however it makes money, it does not - at the very least - cause detriment to either people or planet in the process. Let’s just take it that this must be a given. It simply cannot be otherwise with the scale of the challenges humankind needs to meet. It is the right thing for a business to behave as responsibly as possible - in how it manufactures products or delivers services, in the way it manages its supply chain, in the way it treats its customers and employees. Pandemic or no pandemic: doing business better should not be a choice. It’s a moral imperative. 

The journey we all need to go on to sustainable business practice, if ethically inarguable, is fraught with challenge. Not least because as the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW) makes clear, to do that we will almost certainly have to revisit our definition of what constitutes economic success. And with it, shareholder value. But to create momentum and urgency behind where we need to get to, we must attack the goal with gusto. With, in other words, a real sense of purpose. 

Purpose as a drive for individual meaning.

The second driving force shaping business is the coming together of generations who consciously identify with the notion of greater meaning being something which guides their career paths and purchase decisions, seeking it in themselves and others. As Daniel Pink wrote in Drive back in 2009, “It’s in our nature to seek purpose. But that nature is now being revealed and expressed on a scale that is demographically unprecedented and, until recently, scarcely imaginable. The consequences could rejuvenate our businesses and remake our world.” To ignore this desire for meaning bigger than ourselves is, to Pink’s mind, to ignore a fundamental part of who we are, and what drives us to perform at our most productive and best. 

Arguably the pandemic - and the collective pause for reflection it created space for - has only served to bring this into even sharper focus. It’s left many of us feeling motivated to want to act differently. And to find more meaning in the doing of it.

The convergence of purpose.

Positioning. Sustainability. Meaning. All positive drivers of business success. All valid ways to think about purpose in their own right. But to my mind the received definition of purpose is increasingly one where all three converge. In other words, where purpose-led means the same as environmentally-led or socially-led, and this meets our innate desire for meaning.

If you’re a Tony’s Chocolonely or a Who Gives A Crap toilet paper then fantastic. How you do business is synonymous with what you do and why. It belongs front and centre of your purpose. And it’s baked into your commercial measures of success from the outset. There’s plenty of evidence it will drive increased revenue too. 

Unpicking purpose.

But if you're a business where people or planet weren’t the original impetus for your existence, it’s not as straightforward. Particularly when it comes to marketing. And this, I think, is potentially the reason for frequent confusion and the source of negative chat. 

The fact sustainability isn’t driving how you articulate or communicate your purpose doesn’t make you less able to be a force for good. Movements like BCorp allow space for exactly this. It’s OK for your purpose to be about utility or entertainment. To make people feel or look good. To meet someone’s need for something totally delicious to eat, or to have their lives made easier. But to go about achieving that in an environmentally and socially responsible way. 

For me, it’s helpful to remember that, although linked, why you’re in business, how you conduct it, and what you say about it don’t have to be one and the same thing. It may be more helpful to unpick purpose and think of positioning, sustainability and meaning as three distinct forces which each play a role in driving business success. 

Can we afford purpose? The only way to generate commercial success is through purpose. Whichever definition of it you prefer.