“Never start with tomorrow to reach eternity. Eternity is not being reached by small steps.” – John Donne (17th-century poet and philosopher)

Last week, I introduced Peter Drucker (“the most enduring management thinker of our time”) and the five questions he would ask any organization leader if he was to sit down with him today.

Those questions are:

What is our mission (or purpose)?

Who is our customer?

What does the customer value?

What are our results?

What is our plan?

Drucker referred to mission. I will refer to the same thing as purpose.

My first introduction to the idea of corporate purpose was through the work of Jim Collins. I picked up his book, “Built to Last” at the Kellogg bookstore when I was buying the first round of books for my MBA in strategy and entrepreneurship.

Kellogg is known as a “do-gooder” school. Kellogg isn’t known for its quants, like the University of Chicago, or its ability to land its graduates on Wall Street – like Wharton.

Instead, Kellogg is known for producing passionate and purposeful graduates who are serious about making a difference in the world whether in business or the nonprofit world. I think it was pretty cool that I was introduced to Collins’ work during my first few days at Kellogg. Here is the coolest part. Built-to-last companies outperformed the market by 15x! Collins found that running great companies is a whole lot easier than managing average ones.

The lesson – don’t be average. Do the hard work to accomplish, great and inspiring things. The journey will be more fun and you’ll probably make more money doing it this way.

Back to purpose. People have fundamental needs that purpose-driven organizations meet.

Money

Most of us need to earn money to pay for the essentials in life. This is the base need that jobs meet. Organizations that can meet this need by paying fairly while meeting the other fundamental needs we will discuss below are the ones who keep the best people.

Not only are they able to retain the best people, their people are excited about accomplishing great things for the organization. Attracting and keeping the best people is the only real, lasting competitive advantage in business today.

Pride

Not ego, but feeling good about the work you do. To be excited to tell your kids how you help people in your work. To know your organization is making a positive difference in the world and that your work contributes to this enduring good. Your business can and should stand for something bigger than profit. It must make people’s lives better. Profit is the applause for the difference you are making for your customers.

Connection

What is the most connected you have ever felt to a group of individuals? Were you on a sports team? A mission trip? Both of these “organizations” share a couple things. An inspiring goal and shared values. Your organization can provide those things.

Humans crave connection. We want friends that will help us achieve great things in our lives. Surveys by Gallup found that having a best friend at work greatly improves workplace satisfaction. Guess what? Satisfied employees stay longer and work harder. Wouldn’t that be good for business?

Vision or a Worthy Goal

Deep down, we know that we were created to do great things. We are created with an innate need to do good and make a difference. We need a vision that is the light on the hill that we can look to when times get tough – and we know they will.

Autonomy

In organizational life, autonomy is freedom in how you achieve the desired outcomes. Great people demand it. Once you know what you stand for, you can create the clarity needed to give autonomy to your people.

Collins refers to purpose or mission as the “core ideology” of an organization. Great organizations know what can never change and quickly change the things that can be modified to adapt to changing realities. Collins refers to this as “persevering the core, yet stimulating progress.”

Core ideology consists of your purpose and your core values. Your purpose is your reason for being beyond making a profit. It is why you exist. It is how your organization will make a positive “dent in the universe.” Core values are the guide rails on your journey. They define how you will behave on the trip.

Both are required and neither is easy to come up with and stick to when you are dealing with the daily realities of organizational life. But, if you will make the time to step back and do the hard work of creating your core ideology, then do the harder work of living them out, your organization will operate at levels it never could before.

Once your organization has vision, purpose and core values you will attract and retain better people and you can release them to do great work that brings the organization closer to the vision while honoring the purpose and living by the core values.

How to define your purpose, vision and core values is beyond the scope of this article, but we’ve created resources to help you do it. You can check them out here – www.valuesdrivenresults.com/resource-library/ or give us a call at (229) 244-1559. We’d love to help you in any way we can.

Curt Fowler is president of Fowler & Company and director at Fowler, Holley, Rambo & Stalvey. He is dedicated to helping leaders build great organizations and better lives for themselves and the people they lead.

Curt and the team at FHRS help leaders build great companies through Fractional CFO, strategy, tax and accounting services.