Purpose Pioneers Series: a defined purpose brings benefits not only to a business but also creates energy and creativity

Being aware of and connected to your purpose is critical, not just for the pursuit of your business. Its extraordinary ability to be an expression of the deepest objectives of any entity and initiative makes purpose an engine of development but also of creativity and energy. In the format of interviews conducted by Darren Rudkin, founder of The Mind at Work, entitled “Purpose Pioneers Series”, we discover that it is everything ─ the foundation and motivation of every activity.

Connecting to your purpose helps solve the chaos

Questions that have guided every manager over the years such as “What are our values?”, “What is our mission?”, or “Where are we going?” are actually contained within a single, deeper question: “What is our purpose?” And that goes for everything: Dame Sally Coates OBE, Director of Academies United Learning is convinced. “Once you’re clear about your purpose”, she comments, “then this influences the way you do everything. It allows you to keep going when things get tough and when you think something isn't working." If you don't lose sight of your purpose, then you can think about managing to overcome problems. That's because it's closely related to everything that makes us human. "It fuels people to look further and face profound change with energy”, adds Federico Frattini, Dean of POLIMI Graduate School of Management. “This strength linked to purpose comes from within people and that's what motivates highly innovative organisations. By studying it, I discovered a huge set of human-related factors." Of course, it's not easy ─ maybe it's impossible to be purposeful all the time. There are situations where you are disconnected because you are overwhelmed by the moment, but as Caoire Blakemore, Group Director of A.F. Blakemore & Son points out: “Connecting to your purpose actually helps to resolve the chaos. I don't always do everything right ─ I wear different hats at different times in my job, but purpose allows you to connect with the moment you are in."

With purpose you can find energy and responsibility

Thanks to his many meetings, testimonials and interviews, according to Darren Rudkin, when you act following your purpose you can develop a whole new energy, and this leads to more success. A witness to how a company's performance can be increased by adhering to its purpose is Karsten Breum, Chief people Officer at Danske Bank: "As a bank, we are all task-oriented," he explains, "but when you link these tasks to something higher, like purpose, then you find energy, responsibility." A task simply has to be completed; it is rarely able to develop energy by itself. But when you associate it with a purpose this does happen, because the task acquires a higher meaning. Also an artist asks the questions that managers ask themselves, about why they are taking certain actions and where they are going. For Hermann Niebuhr, who, in many of his works, wanted to tell the story of urban decay, when he thought about his work the first objective was to bring a painting to the market and sell it. "But that's a simple, very limited purpose”, he comments, “and there's a way to go further and further, trying to go deeper and deeper into my experiences. Then yes, I am entering the realm of purpose."