Refocus everyone in the business on core purpose
Discover your why?
In our interview on Strategy Café (you can find this on our YouTube channel, do subscribe), Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi talks about her Radical Decluttering.
It’s a beautiful story, of a beautiful soul, set in amazing and epic geographies. It is about how we all get lost and found.
What was it that she had lost?
Ultimately what it comes down to is a sense of purpose. In Dr Amina’s case, which purpose is the right one? And it is purpose that, fundamentally, brings meaning to life.
Purpose brings meaning to life
Purposes can be big, like sending a mission to Mars (or maybe to make Mars a service station on your interstellar journey, imagine the coffee they’d serve!).
Purposes can be mid-sized. This year I will get promoted.
Purposes can also be small. My purpose today is to chill, to shop, to meet a friend, to write.
Each brings meaning to our day.
Uh Oh! Here comes the clutter. Many of these purposes maybe mundane, but they are also magical, because they keep you alive and human. Food, friendship, relaxation, creativity. These are all aspects of who we are, of how we define ourselves. Being defined is a really important part our psychological health. When we are distinct, we can navigate, when we are indistinct, we can get lost.
Some purposes are vital to how life is lived. You might call them “core”. Maybe you have never had a sense of core purpose. Even so, you probably know people who do have that, and you know the intensity and focus it brings.
It is easy to lose this intensity when your purposes are disorganised, cluttered, contradictory and missing an overall direction that feels like the real you.
Business is no different.
To succeed, business needs to be really clear about its core purpose
There are some important questions to ask to get to this clarity.
Who does our business serve?
What does our business do when it is serving at its best?
How is what we do and how it is served experienced?
How do we make our customers feel?
What is it we are doing when we make them feel amazing?
Business can be full of mundane purposes. How many of these are personal or social, but not core? For example the politics, the career, the pay, the meetings (OMG the mundane meetings. Declutter!)
Time for a declutter and refocus on those of our shared purposes that are vital, and bring that intensity to our business, so that our customers ..
“Love That! I want more..!”
Do you know your businesses purpose? Can you say it simply? Do you all say broadly the same thing?
If not consider Dr Amina’s advice and get in touch for a radical declutter, and to get everyone in the team back On Purpose so that the business gets more On Track.
Get involved at our website, comment or chat with me on medium, or connect with me @mayhewnick on twitter, on LinkedIn, or by email: nick.mayhew@alembicstrategy.com.
