by Ranjay Gulati (Author)
A
distinguished Harvard Business School professor offers a compelling
reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting
the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when
firms manage to get purpose right.
Few business
topics have aroused more skepticism in recent years than the notion of
corporate purpose, and for good reason. Too many companies deploy
purpose, or a reason for being, as a promotional vehicle to make
themselves feel virtuous and to look good to the outside world. Some
have only foggy ideas about what purpose is and conflate it with
strategy and other concepts like “mission,” “vision,” and “values.” Even
well-intentioned leaders don’t understand purpose’s full potential and
engage half-heartedly and superficially with it. Outsiders spot this and
become cynical about companies and the broader capitalist endeavor.
Having
conducted extensive field research, Ranjay Gulati reveals the fatal
mistakes leaders unwittingly make when attempting to implement a reason
for being. Moreover, he shows how companies can embed purpose much more
deeply than they currently do, delivering impressive performance
benefits that reward customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, and
communities alike. To get purpose right, leaders must fundamentally
change not only how they execute it but also how they conceive of and
relate to it. They must practice what Gulati calls deep purpose, furthering each organization’s reason for being more intensely, thoughtfully, and comprehensively than ever before.
In
this authoritative, accessible, and inspiring guide, Gulati takes
readers inside some of the world’s most purposeful companies to
understand the secrets to their successes. He explores how leaders can
pursue purpose more deeply by
- navigating the inevitable tradeoffs more deliberately and effectively to balance between short- and long-term value;
- building purpose more systematically into every key organizational function to mobilize stakeholders and enhance performance;
- updating
organizations to foster more autonomy and collaboration, which in turn
allow individual employees to work more purposefully;
- using
powerful storytelling to communicate a reason for being, arousing
emotions and building a community of inspired and committed
stakeholders; and
- building
cultures that don’t merely support purpose, but also allow employees to
link the corporate purpose to their own personal reasons for being.
As
Gulati argues, a deeper engagement with purpose holds the key not
merely to the well-being of individual companies but also to humanity’s
future. With capitalism under siege and relatively low levels of trust
in business, purpose can serve as a radically new operating system for
the enterprise, enhancing performance while also delivering meaningful
benefits to society. It’s the kind of inspired thinking that
businesses—and the rest of us—urgently need.
