What’s Your Purpose—Your Cause?
Strategy + Business had an interesting article in a recent Leading Ideas enews. Entitled “How Causes Can Animate Companies”, the article focuses on the importance of cause or purpose to organizations. See http://www.strategy-business.com/li/leadingideas/li00040
Author Mohan Nair opens saying, “The world’s greatest corporations — Apple, Disney, Google, and others…are anchored on more than just a revenue-creating business model. Each of them has, at its core, an inspiring ideology that is intrinsically linked to the company’s value proposition and competency.”
This is the same point that James Collins and Jerry Porras make in Built to Last, where they point out that the “core ideology” is a critical element in successful, visionary companies.
Purpose--cause—ideology, call it what you will, is not the same as a mission or vision. Nair writes, “The best companies are animated by a cause. A cause is a lasting theme, an architecture that supports the transformation of the greater environment. It has personal, rather than organizational, implications. Missions are given to groups walking in lockstep; causes are taken up by creative individuals. A mission is a bounded, purposeful action. Missions impose the will of managers on employees, whereas causes are grounded in the latent, unexpressed will of the overall organization, and usually resonate with the company’s identity or history. “
So, what drives your association or organization? Is it a cause or purpose that pervades your organization? Or is it a mission or a vision statement in your bylaws? Is your organization driven by business processes focused on net revenues or by customer service? Is it driven by the personal interests of dues-paying members? Is it driven by a higher purpose in support of the profession, field or public?
What‘s your enduring purpose—your cause? What drives your organization?
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Comments
Amen! Earlier this week I led a strategy session for a group considering certification for their industry. When talking about goals for such a program, the group starting uttering the blah, blah, blahs of typical strategic planning. After a bit I said, Okay, those are all nice statements, but now let's talk about what you are REALLY trying to accomplish. Only then came the aha moment and real excitement about the cause they identified. We need to get past the elegant (and often meaningless) words and find the real purpose of our efforts.
Posted by: Mickie Rops | September 27, 2007 3:01 PM
Well said, Virgil. The so-called missions most associations embrace are too limited and tend to promote the status quo. Apparently the word "mission" has been devalued and we must use "cause" to promote the idea that organizations must be aspirational--that together we can achieve something for the greater good than our own personal success.
Associations have been too timid--too worried about offending the sensibilitities of some--only to miss the main chance of changing the world for the better.
Associations that deliver the means to grow personally and professionally, that stand for something that really matters, transcend the narrow boundaries of today's lobbying agenda or differentiating certification process.
The association's cause should be to better the lives of the people its members serve.
If that's not the end game, so-called strategy will always fall short.
Cheers,
Ann O.
Posted by: Ann Oliveri | October 11, 2007 8:57 AM