Author’s Note: This was originally published in Fresh Cup Magazine’s December 2018 Coffee Almanac. Many thanks to the lovely folks there who gave me a chance to grow as a writer.
A friend once said to me, “If we don’t understand why something works, we won’t know how to fix it when it breaks.”
At first it sounded pithy, but the more I thought about it the more it resonated with me. We take this for granted when it comes to mechanical systems like gasoline engines and the furnace that heats our home—but what about our workplace?
Some workplaces we look forward to showing up at, while others we dread going to every day. Knowing the Purpose, what author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek calls the WHY behind a company’s existence, can be a guiding light to getting things up and running and keeping everyone working on track.
Understanding the overarching idea of the company you work for is essential.
Without it there is an inevitable uncertainty among staff members as to whether or not they are doing their jobs well. It becomes anybody’s guess what the end goal of the company is and, consequently, it becomes debatable as to whether or not your supervisor will praise you or scold you for the decisions you’re making each day. In my experience, people who enjoy working collaboratively as a part of a team thrive when they understand the company’s Purpose.
Purpose Creates Clarity
Knowing something in our gut and being able to articulate it in our mind are two different things. From a neurobiological standpoint, one resides in the limbic part of your brain and the other in the neocortex. When we speak of the “head” and the “heart” in processing information, this is what we are alluding to. By engaging both parts of the brain simultaneously, we have unshakeable confidence and clarity. This coherence is more powerful than you might expect. It allows us to spend less time debating ideas because they more obviously line up (or don’t) with our Purpose.
Staff members also know how to prioritize their time when they know what the end game is. Managers know whom to hire and who to fire because they have a distinct identity centered around the company’s clearly articulated Vision—they don’t have to guess if someone is a good fit or not.
Employers can attract better staff when their end goal is more distinct. Knowing the WHY helps to eliminate guesswork, allowing us to make decisions day-to-day with confidence, spend our time and energy more wisely, and, ultimately, make progress towards our intended target more effectively.
Purpose Builds Trust
If we all know WHY we’re here at work, we can count on co-workers to make decisions based on a similar metric and aim towards a common Mission.
When our actions at work are in line with the WHY, supervisors should be expected to back us up. We also understand that if anyone goes against the grain of Purpose of the company, there will be consequences, and we can trust that decisions will be made a certain way. WHY? Because we understand what it takes to reach our objectives.
Purpose Motivates
Consider the following analogy: Two masons are building a stone wall. The first one complains, “The work is hard, the hours are long, the sun is hot, and I don’t even know what this wall is for.”
The second stonemason says, “Sure, the work is hard, the hours are long, and the sun gets hot around here, but I’m working with astronomers, brilliant architects, and other crafts-people, and we’re building an observatory to gaze at the stars.”
Knowing the Purpose behind the day-to-day work provides a reason to do the work that is bigger than a paycheck—even bigger than the company. We are all working towards something specific and we’re going there together.
When times get tough, as they always do, that Vision keeps us going rather than complaining. WHY? Because we know what we’re striving for and it’s worth it.
How to Find Your Purpose
This is all well and good, you may say, but how do we define our Purpose, our WHY? The answers to the following three questions will help guide you towards an answer.
1. What are you deeply passionate about?
There are an infinite number of ways to ask and answer this question:. What gets you out of bed in the morning? What are your favorite components of your current role? What can you not stop doing? What comes so easily to you that, to others, it seems almost supernatural?
All these questions are driving at the same point—WHY do you do what you do? It’s an age-old question, but one I strongly recommend every person wrestle with. It has far-reaching implications and, once answered, creates clarity in other arenas of your life.
Pro tip: Aim for something specific enough to be helpful but broad enough that it doesn’t lock you into one, singular task. For example, “I’m passionate about COFFEE” is too broad to guide you in any particular direction.
On the other hand, “I’m passionate about BEING A BARISTA” is so specific that you’re locked into one job. What will you do if, heaven forbid, you get tired of being a barista? You’ll have to go back to the drawing board.
2. What can you be the best at doing?
The companies that have the most distinct identities have pursued goals that they are passionate about and that they can be the best at.
Think of some of your favorite companies. Are they passionate about how they do business? Are they considered the best at what they do?
Side note: Being the best requires being unique, but even that’s not enough. Originality is helpful to be better, but it’s not greatness in and of itself. Always aim for being the best, not being original. If you achieve greatness, you’ll find originality will follow.
3. What can you make money doing?
This question, although important, is placed last intentionally.
Money is to a business what blood is to our veins. It’s essential for staying alive, but it is not our reason for living.
We are seeking the difference between being profitable and profit-driven. Profitability allows you to fulfill your goals long into the future, whereas drive solely for profit may actually send the company off track, if not out of business entirely.
The pursuit of money itself is not compelling enough. If you don’t keep the right people around, doing the work that makes the company great, eventually they’ll leave and you’ll be left with only those for whom money is their WHY. Personally, I have found that to be a toxic workplace.
Your answer to the question of Purpose has to be simple enough to be communicated through the game of telephone that is the layers of a company. It needs to be repeatable so every person hears the same exact message. It must be clear, specific enough to be helpful, and compelling enough to set us apart from the rest.
When those conditions are met, the kind of people you want to work with will start lining up at your door for jobs because they will know WHY you do what you do and they want to be a part of it.
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