What Is the Purpose of Your Purpose?

Thomas Winz/Getty Images

“Despite its sudden elevation in corporate life,” the authors write, “purpose remains a confusing topic.” They argue that a primary cause of this confusion is that the word is used in three senses: Cause-based purposes (such as Patagonia’s “in business to save our home planet”) tend to receive the most attention. Competence-based purposes (such as Mercedes’s “First Move the World”) express a clear value proposition to customers and the employees responsible for delivering that value. Culture-based purposes (such as Zappos’s “To Live and Deliver WOW”) are effective at creating internal alignment and collaboration with key partners. The authors offer advice about identifying what sort of purpose will best suit your company without misrepresenting it.

Today’s business leaders are under pressure to come up with a corporate purpose, much as they were challenged to develop vision and mission statements in the 1980s and 1990s. Although this focus on the role of corporations in the economy and broader society has many positive aspects, a risk is that speed, shortcuts, and spin may take precedence over authentic action. Our goal in this article is to help executive leaders be clear-sighted about what they seek to define: the purpose of their purpose.

A version of this article appeared in the March–April 2022 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Categories

Hand Picked

What Is the Purpose of Your Purpose?

Related Posts

Subscribe to Updates