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Passion + Workforce = Performance

Infuse passion in your workforce for passionate performance.

By Paul Ratoff (CMC), Vistage Member, July 2007

Topic: Employee Motivation

Do you have purpose? Do your team members? The three top ranking U.S. companies in Fortune’s 2007 list of "100 Best Companies To Work For" were Google, Genentech and Wegmans Food Markets. Although different in many ways, these three companies share one common attribute.

Each has a clearly stated purpose:

Google's purpose is “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
For Genentech it is “to positively impact the world of human health.”
For Wegmans, a privately held grocery chain, it is “to be the very best at serving the needs of our customers, our people and our communities.”

Being committed to something bigger than earning a profit has not precluded each of these companies from being financially successful leaders in their markets. In fact, having a purpose that is inspiring can be a powerful magnet for talented employees and a motivator for higher performance.

Imagine how far your business could go if employees were fully engaged in making a difference in your world.

A company’s purpose takes precedence over each individual’s personal needs because of its greater impact on the lives of so many others. And employees like it that way. Everyone wants to make their work matter. It’s part of our nature as human beings to feel that we are making a difference in the world around us. Google, Genentech, and Wegmans have always had a clear understanding of their larger purpose, and employees clamor on board with great passion and energy for solving the larger problem.

The skeptic in you might say that these organizations are unusual. By their very nature they are up to something bigger. What if a company just makes widgets? Who’s going to get excited about widgets? Your skepticism is warranted if the focus is on widgets, or even on the specific problem the widget solves. But if you focus on the larger problem that your widget-making organization can help solve, you’ll ignite passion among employees who will want to make the organization stronger and more influential.

It took many tries for Google, Genentech and Wegmans Food Markets to solve the problem of information search, genetic engineering, and enhancing the shopping experience, respectively. Most of the solutions that were developed along the way were not very exciting by themselves, but dedication to the larger purpose kept everyone moving forward.

Every organization, through the products and services it provides, solves a piece of a much larger problem. The widgets you make may be part of the solution to better health, cleaner air, world peace, creating a trusting society, or honoring service. The possibilities are unlimited. It’s up to you to discover the larger problem or purpose that will inspire you and your organization to action. Once you’ve identified your larger purpose you can implement systems and processes designed to channel everyone’s energies in the same meaningful direction and aspire to unprecedented performance.

Steps to discovering your larger purpose

Discover your organization’s larger purpose in four steps:

Ask yourself...

Is there already a larger purpose? Is your organization already committed to a purpose that is meaningful and important to you, your customers and your workforce? Do not confuse mission with purpose. Your mission is what you do; purpose answers the question of why. If you can identify a purpose that inspires you, test it out with your employees. If they are also inspired by it, then proceed to step three.

Agree on a larger purpose.

Assemble a representative team of workers that have influence inside your organization. Get them to agree on a larger purpose -- that is, the larger problem in your community or the world that is meaningful to all team members and that they want this organization to address. It’s best to use a trained facilitator to take your team through this exercise.

Align actions with your larger purpose.

Now align behavior with the purpose you have identified. This requires re-examining your corporate values and strategies in light of your larger purpose and modifying them as needed. Remember that your larger purpose should provide the context for everything your organization does. Since your strategic plan is your road map, it is important that it lead to the fulfilment of your purpose.

Create structures to sustain your larger purpose.

Your final step is to put in place certain behaviors, policies and metrics (for Google, these might be number of searches or number of participants who use the search engine) to keep your larger purpose alive within the organization. Without these structures, your larger purpose and passion will disappear.

Some examples are:

Create a formal strategic planning process and marketing materials that stay aligned with the larger purpose
Be sure your long-term goals and measurable short-term objectives address competencies that are needed to fulfil the larger purpose
Develop company newsletters that speak to the larger purpose and it's impact on the world and acknowledge other organizations around the world that are addressing the issue

Looking back at the three examples, each organization:

Has a clearly articulated purpose. Google and Genentech state their purpose in their mission statement. Wegmans states theirs in its tag line and in a “what we believe” statement.
Pursued actions that were aligned with that purpose. Each company has stayed true to its purpose.
Tracked success by the progress it made in fulfilling the purpose. Each organization measures success in terms that are defined by the purpose, whether it’s the number of searches, successful therapeutics in the field, or community food programs.

Remember, to create an impassioned workforce, you will need to:

Have the desire to commit your organization to something larger
Get workers to agree on a common purpose. Do this by looking for the larger problem that your organization currently addresses in its own small way.
Align your organization’s values and strategies with that larger purpose
Put metrics and structures in place to ensure that the larger purpose remains the source for inspiration and the context for all future actions

Every organization has the opportunity to create a larger context for its actions and benefit from the power of an impassioned workforce. Why not yours?

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