The Power of Purpose

Episode 2: Giving Your Work Meaning – Being Clear About its Purpose

[00:00:00] James: Hello. I’m James.

[00:00:05] Jimmy: Hi, I’m Jimmy.

[00:00:07] James: Welcome to A Job Well Done.

[00:00:09] Jimmy: to a podcast about the world of work and how to improve the daily grind. Welcome to a job well done podcast.

[00:00:18] James: A job done well, not a job well done.

[00:00:21] Jimmy: So used to you correcting my English. Go then explain that,

[00:00:25] James: It’s very easy. A steak is well done, a job is done well.

[00:00:31] Jimmy: Ok, or another or way of looking at it. A steak is well done is saying well done to someone done. Well is setting a standard.

[00:00:39] James: Yeah and we’re all about standards on this podcast as you can tell. Exactly.

[00:00:42] Jimmy: Exactly.

Welcome to a Job Done Well podcast, our first episode about making your work more meaningful by being clear on your purpose. So what you can expect in the next 20 or 30 minutes is some insights, some hints and tips, and hopefully some entertaining stories that will help you think about what this means to your work and how it can help you improve your daily grind.

 Before you get going James, how was your week,

[00:01:11] James: Oh, nightmare. Some lunatic reversed their car into me whilst I was driving into the car park. Well, it could be worse. I suppose it wasn’t my car was my wife’s car. So be thankful for small mercies. But not only did they reverse into my wife’s car, but I’m in a downward spiral of call centers and talking to people trying to get it all sorted out.

So thank you very much for asking. But that was my week. How is yours?

[00:01:35] Jimmy: This week has been torture from virgin media on their broadband.  They said I need a new router. So I asked them if that would mean that the network would change or anything. And they were like, no, no, you plug it in.

Plug in the new one. Everything will link up absolutely fine. And they got me off the phone. And, and when I Actually changed over, having spent about three or four hours linking everything up together.

[00:02:03] James: Hang on, let me guess. It didn’t work.

[00:02:05] Jimmy: It didn’t work. Nothing’s worked. I mean, the gate doesn’t open. You know, the TVs don’t work. the you know, the kids are screaming about the broadband in their rooms.

[00:02:16] James: This is a first world problem. Jimmy Barber cannot open his gate because it’s not connected to the internet.

[00:02:21] Jimmy: I know, I know it is. But, the point being… The person who I spoke to was clearly being targeted by getting me off the phone. Never mind about how happy I am. Never mind about whether you’ve resolved my problem. Just get me off the phone. So I can’t blame them. It’s the system that they’re working in.

[We’ll talk more about systems, because when we talk about systems, we don’t just mean IT technology systems. It’s much wider than that. It’s the system that you work in. It can be the way you manage performance. It can be processes.

[00:02:55] James: how your suppliers behave, what your incentives are. Anyway, on a more positive note, you’ve now got a new best friend . Because you’ll phone him back and phone him back and phone him back until they sort your problem out. moving on, let’s not talk about Virgin Media anymore because we’ll just end up with them raising a legal suit against us.

Today we’re going to talk about purpose. So what do we mean about purpose? . First of all, it gives meaning to work. It also gives a sense of direction.

And for me, most importantly, it provides a design standard. It’s the thing which you design all your processes and systems about. I think it’s probably the most important thing that a boss can do is set a clear purpose and direction

[00:03:35] Jimmy: you’re such a typical analyst. It’s about a design standard for me. Purpose is the thing that gets you up in the morning. It really is what makes you tick. It is what makes your work meaningful. And it means that you can know that you’ve had a successful day. As you say, it is an important thing that people do, but it’s not.

It’s not really just for people running organizations, is it?

[00:03:57] James: No, not really. So if you run a department or you’ve got a team, or even for you as an individual, you can be clear what your purpose is and you can design your work around it and have a go. So, a couple of examples.

[00:04:10] Jimmy: Yeah, if I look at a good one, the classic that everyone will know is the one from NASA where JFK was wandering around, introduced himself to a janitor and the janitor said that he was busy putting a man in the moon.

And I think, it highlights two things, doesn’t it? One. The making the work meaningful. I mean, if you’re cleaning toilets or putting a man on the moon, you know, one of them’s going to give you a bit more fulfillment. But it also does focus his efforts. So the janitor was making sure that everywhere where the scientists work was neat and tidy.

 So , he was focused on their purpose just the same way as they were.

[00:04:46] James: My favorite one is a company that builds ships in New England. It’s the Newport News Shipbuilding Company and their purpose statement is we will build good ships at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always we will build good ships.

That’s great on two levels. First of all, I think if you are working there, then it really is something to get behind. But as a customer, why would you want to go anywhere else? I’m tempted to go over there myself and buy a ship. It’s just a pity I live in Nottingham. It’s what I need, a trawler.

[00:05:17] Jimmy: We’re one of the

furthest points from the sea in the UK.

[00:05:21] James: But they’re not always that good. One of my least favourites, we’ve got it up here, you can read it out, the Kodak mission statement.

[00:05:28] Jimmy: We’ve heard the good.

Let’s hear, hear the bad and the ugly. The Kodak one, and I’m not sure I can do this, but I’ll give it a go. Build a world class, results oriented culture, providing consumers and customers with many ways to capture, store, process and output and communicate images and pictures as memories, information and entertainment to people and machines anywhere, anytime.

And bring differentiated, cost effective solutions to market quickly and with flawless quality through a diverse team of energetic employees. With world class talent and skills to sustain Kodak as the world leader in imaging.

[00:06:08] James: Are you finished yet?

[00:06:09] Jimmy: Jesus, man, I need oxygen after that. I mean, that trips off the tongue, doesn’t it?

You’re not really going to remember that, are you?

[00:06:15] James: It is the kitchen sink of purpose statements. But I take your bad purpose statement and I raise you one. Now, I am I am biased, it must be said, because I used to work for Mars, and I’ve got a pension there. However, the worst purpose statement, I think of all time, belongs to the Hershey Chocolate Company.

 Their purpose statement is, undisputed marketplace leadership.

That is just dreadful, isn’t it? It’s all about me. Me, me, me, me, me. We are going to be the best. And why would you worry about making a rich man richer? That’s what I want to know. There’s my ugly one.

[00:06:48] Jimmy: Apart from them putting three buzzwords together, is that that bad? Yeah,

[00:06:53] James: But it doesn’t really explain what they’re going to do for their customers, does it? They could be making anything with a mission statement like that. Anyway, moving on from Hershey’s, I suppose my question is, at a local level, what’s our purpose statements, what have you done in the past that’s worked for you?

[00:07:07] Jimmy: Well, I’ve got a good example of one that didn’t quite go to plan. I was a sales director once. Somebody told me about purpose led organizations. So we we worked on what was our purpose and we came up with a really catchy. We were there to do more sales, which is essentially what our stakeholders, wanted us to do.

[00:07:27] James: Hang on, sorry, let me get that. So your purpose as a sales organisation was to do more sales?

[00:07:33] Jimmy: Yeah.

[00:07:33] James: Yeah, you really went to town on that one, didn’t you?

[00:07:35] Jimmy: We did, we did. word smith to death. But the point was, we got everyone in the teams really focused on it and engaged in it. And, actually drove some fantastic results in, in the short term. So it really brought it home to me. A, that, you don’t have to have a really flashy statement. it is just about getting something that people can get behind. The trouble was, I hadn’t really thought through.

Because it wasn’t necessary every sale that we made. was particularly valuable to the customers. So then, you end up with problems around quality. I think it is important to spend time, thinking what the impacts of your statement might be.

[00:08:13] James: he talks about problems about quality. What my learned colleague doesn’t say is that it was at the heart of one of the greatest mis selling scandals of our time.

[00:08:21] Jimmy: So, what about you? , you the smart arse have something good to tell us, haven’t you?

[00:08:25] James: This is really exciting, but I ran a management information department, and our purpose statement was to deliver timely, accurate management information. Which, alright, it doesn’t make the heart go faster, but it was something that the guys really got behind.

Because they could work out, well, was this management information accurate? And did we give it out or send it when we said we were going to send it? And that really drove a huge improvement in the service that we were offering. And customers stopped complaining because we were really clear about what we were there to do.

[00:08:55] Jimmy: I witnessed that first hand, and one of the big things that you did that made the most difference to your customers was having a clear measure of your success. We’ll come back to that in a future episode I reckon.

[00:09:07] James: So it doesn’t have to be the most awe inspiring statement of all time. It just needs to be something that’s clear and customer focused theoretically, it’s really important, but is that just an opinion

[00:09:20] Jimmy: Or is it all just corporate bollocks?

[00:09:23] James: Come on, then. So we got any numbers. Tell me.

[00:09:24] Jimmy: Well I know you’d like some data, James, the analyst in the team. But yeah, actually, there’s lots of research being done around purpose driven organisations. And, , you find that staff engagement’s higher. In purpose driven organisations it is over 90% In non purpose driven organizations, it’s 32%.

The actual commercial results are better, so higher growth, higher levels of innovation, , and also staff retention is 40 percent higher .

[00:09:56] James: Right. Thanks. But I think the other thing that’s really important is it’s not just corporate wallpaper. It’s like the old greenwashing thing. It’s saying it is one thing, but you need to get behind it.

 My favorite story is the story of the Aravind Eye Hospital in India. Now this was founded by I’m going to mess this up, Dr. Govindappa Ventakaswamy. And his purpose was really quite straightforward, which was to eliminate needless blindness.

Let me just give you three examples of the types of things they’ve done. The bottleneck or the most expensive thing is the doctor. So, each operating theatre has two beds in it, and the doctor operates on somebody on the first bed, and meanwhile the staff prepare the second bed, and then when the doctor’s finished operating, he washes his hands, turns around to move to the second bed, and everybody clears away the first bed, gets the patient out and rolls in the next one. They really focus on throughput.

Another example of what they did was in the 1980s, synthetic lenses came into play. And the companies that were making these wanted to sell them to Dr. V for about $100 a pop. So instead set up his own manufacturing facility. And now he sells lenses, synthetic lenses, worldwide at about $2 a go.

And then the final thing, which I think is really impressive, is that he doesn’t charge people who can’t afford to pay. Obviously there’s a lot of poverty in India, and half the people can’t pay, but he just cross funds it with the people who can pay, and the service is exactly the same, he rotates his doctors through the paying and non paying wards so that everybody gets the same service.

Now what is really interesting is that Aravind now does 60 percent more eye surgeries than the United Kingdom’s NHS does

[00:11:39] Jimmy: I’ve heard they do it at a thousandth of the cost.

[00:11:42] James: Yep, that’s right. So just imagine what that would do for the NHS. So there you go. That’s the power of purpose. Shows what you can do if you get focused. Do you get it?

[00:11:52] Jimmy: Very good, James. That case study really highlights when you get clear and really obsess about your purpose, the difference you can make to the world around you. I think there is also another angle to this, which is when you’re setting a purpose, who you’re doing it for, you’re doing for the business, for the employees, because actually I saw some interesting research from PwC that said there’s Quite a big difference between kind of business leaders and what they want from purpose, and employees.

So business leaders are interested in the commercial benefits, and the top two things they want are reputation and differentiation. Those are where they see the benefits for having a clear purpose. However, employees are more interested in engagement benefits. So, does it show the impact of my work? And, um, Working together as a community, as a team to deliver on a purpose.

So I think you need to consider both of those. Because the danger is, if you just do from a business perspective, you just get a flashy purpose statement and start marketing the hell out of it. Whereas actually, the rubber really hits the road when you engage your staff and drive action.

[00:13:08] James: There was also that stat you were telling me about mental health issue associated with purpose.

[00:13:13] Jimmy: It was it was some research done that looked at the impact on. Purpose in general, not just kind of work purpose, but purpose in general. And people who believe they have a purpose in their life are half as likely to have heart trouble than people who don’t. So it’s just a win win in terms of, you know, what you’re doing for your business, but what you’re doing for your people as an, as individuals, what you’re doing for your health and wellbeing.

[00:13:38] James: So no more Monday morning feeling if you got a good purpose statement, well, I’m at least minimise it. Moving on then, what makes a good purpose statement? What should somebody think about?

[00:13:48] Jimmy: Well, hopefully, , you’d have got a sense of that from the good, the bad and the ugly that we talked about earlier. But I think, it has to be really very clear and compelling. It has to be externally focused. So not just focused on what you’re doing, but what does it mean to the outside world, your customers in particular, it has to be actionable. , key is, will it drive some change, some action, some focus within your organization, within your team? And it has to be exciting and ambitious.

[00:14:17] James: There is that book isn’t there? Will It Make the Boat Go Faster? The British Rowing Team?

[00:14:23] Jimmy: I saw the, the guy who, one of , the crew there, Ben Hunt Davis talks a lot about his experience, and , it’s a fascinating story, where they really focused on their goal, which was to win the Olympic gold in, in 2000 at Sydney. And they really had no right to, to go after. They weren’t the best team by any stretch of the imagination. But they spent a number of years completely obsessing on that gold medal. And that applied to everyone involved, not just the, the rowers in, in the boat, but also the people supporting the team, the physios, the people driving them around, everyone.

[00:14:59] James: And the bit that I really like about that is the question, will it make the boat go faster? Because it’s incredibly focused. I mean, it’s the same with the Aravind story. Will it eradicate blindness

Or actually, my M. I. department did send out that M. I. on time? And then, but this whole point about externally focused and actionable and exciting. Hershey’s one to start off with. The Kodak statement, I’m afraid I can’t remember. I’ve lost it. And the yeah, Hershey’s one was just about you know, let’s make ourselves richer and nobody’s going to get excited about that. So really quite important.

But for me, I think the really important bit is the actionable stuff.

So if you’ve got something that’s clear and exciting, How do you actually use it?

[00:15:42] Jimmy: I think there are a couple of key things to really think about in terms of the actionable, I’d encourage people to think about, , how you’re spending your time? What does your diary look like? Are the things that you’re spending your time on really focused on the delivery of that, that purpose?

But equally as important is engaging everyone around the purpose And there’s a few things I’ve seen in the past work well. You can, , get staff to co design the purpose . You can also make sure that people really understand the importance of it. So what is the contribution that purpose makes to their, the wider world, to the customers, to society as a whole.

And also getting people to think about how they contribute to it. it, and what their role does to really help them deliver on it.

[00:16:30] James: Yeah, for me, being Mr. Numbers, can you measure it? So if you are out there to build good ships, how many ships did you build and how many sank? ? Are they good or not? That’s the real point. Can you measure against it as well?

And of course, if you can measure it, then you can start to put plans against it and see how your action’s going.

[00:16:48] Jimmy: You have to watch out for when those change, . We had a great example of that recently with the government and the net zero plans, where they changed recently the, the targets around electric vehicles. And that’s, really changed , , the game for the, the motor industry who were all gearing up to have everyone buying electric vehicles by 2030.

[00:17:11] James: Oh, yeah, they’re in the right pickle, aren’t they? Well, because they changed the purpose.

Let me give you just one closing story. My daughter, who was about, five at the time, I took her to the local library. And I went back with her a couple of weeks later to return her books. And the librarian went through the books and she said, Oh, you’ve forgotten one. And I said to my daughter, I said, darling, because you do say that to your daughter, don’t you? Darling, where’s the book? And she said, oh, I’ve left it on the train to Granny’s house. At which point I thought to myself, oh, here we go, I’m going to get fined, Lord knows how much, for the loss of a library book and bad citizenship, hell and damnation going to rain down on me.

I said, I’m really sorry to the librarian, but it looks like we’ve lost the book. And the librarian looked at me and she said, how old’s your daughter?

And I said, oh, she’s five. And the librarian said, oh, there isn’t a fine. Why isn’t there a fine? And she said, because the purpose of the library is to inspire the joy of reading. And for children under five, they do lose books, so we don’t fine people. Because if we fine people, the parents won’t bring them into the library. So, there you go, my local library, inspiring the joy of learning, a good example of purpose.

[00:18:20] Jimmy: I’ve got another one where I experienced this week another small story. I went to Sainsbury’s to do my shopping yesterday morning. And I didn’t have a coin for the trolley. So I went to the customer service desk with a £10 note and said, Yeah, can I get some change so I can have some change for the trolley?

And they said it’s company policy to not give you change.

So I… I need a trolley to do my shopping, how am I going to do that? And then the really nice person behind the counter, she got her little Nectar token out and said, you can borrow this though, if you please bring it back to me. I think that’s a great example of the purpose of Sainsbury’s is surely something to do with helping its customers in shopping.

And then they put stuff in their system that stops you from being able to do that. But then… The triumph for the staff who, who found a way of overcoming and actually delivering on the the, the company’s purpose.

we’ve talked about the importance of being clear on your purpose and how that can make your work more meaningful, setting a good, clear purpose statement, engaging your teams and obsessing around it and driving all the action from that and the impact then that can have on the world around you.

[00:19:32] James: My favourite thought is, think of it as a design standard that you put all your processes and systems around.

[00:19:38] Jimmy: James is such a analyst design standard. So much more than that.

[00:19:43] James: more Right, anyway I hope that has inspired you to get out there and think about what your purpose is and write something that your staff can get behind.

[00:19:51] Jimmy: So join us next week where as I mentioned, the topic will be around measures.

[00:19:57] James: I’m getting quite excited about that.

[00:19:59] Jimmy: You would do, but next week’s podcast will be what gets measured gets done. So if you’ve got any questions on anything you’ve heard today or anything around next week’s topic Or anything else Work related then drop us an email at jimmy@ajobdonewell.com

[00:20:19] James: or if you really want a sensible answer james at a job well done well I’ve messed up the name james@ajobdonewell.com

[00:20:27] Jimmy: Thanks everyone

[00:20:29] James: As they say well done.