Now, before you say it, I know I’m a bit late to the party – but I’ve just started watching House of Cards, the brilliant Netflix drama about US politics. It got me thinking about the analogy of a house of cards and I started to wonder – how many organisations are built on a foundation of purpose, rather than profit?

It seems to me that having profit as your business’s primary purpose is like building a house of cards – eventually, it’s going to come tumbling down. With nothing but profit to aim for, you’ll find yourself with a team of unmotivated, unengaged people who feel like they’re only there to make money for the owner. And who wants to get out of bed and go to work for that?

The point of purpose

Profit is an output, not a purpose. Business history tells us that great year-end results don’t make great organisations. Remember good old Woolies? Over time, Woolworths tried to reinvent itself to remain profitable but, as a result, they forgot who they were and what they stood for. Now they’re just a fond memory of old records and cheap pick ‘n’ mix.

By stripping away the layers of what your business does and what motivates it, you’ll discover a deeper purpose. It’s this purpose that unites your people, gives your business a solid foundation, helps you direct its course and gives your customers something to buy into and engage with.

Leading with purpose

Everyone in your organisation knows what they do. If you’re lucky, most of them will know how they do it. But the truth is, hardly anyone knows why they do what they do.

That’s because the “why” is the purpose, and organisations don’t tend to talk about why they exist. They’re looking from the inside out, and this influences everything they do. It’s only the most inspirational leaders and inspired organisations that think, act and communicate from the inside out.

Apple is an obvious example of this. They say,

“Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in thinking differently.”

This statement is all about their purpose as a business. After all, we don’t just do business with people who need what we sell. We do business with people who believe what we believe.

Mission: Impossible?

So, the question now is how many people out there are thinking the same thing? And, in a world where organisations don’t want to focus on purpose, is it impossible to change?

I think the key thing to remember is that the working world is changing around us, and the next generation of workers already has a very different perspective on what they do. They want to work for a business that has purpose, and they want to feel like they’re making a difference in an organisation that values them. For every organisation that doesn’t recognise its purpose, there’ll be one that does. So don’t let yours be that one that’s left behind in the dust.