- 91% of respondents who believe their organization have a sense of purpose report strong financial showing in business over the past year
- 82% of respondents working at organizations with a strong sense of purpose believe that their organization will grow over the next year
- 79% of employees and executives at purpose driven companies are optimistic about their organization’s long-term ability to outperform the competition (source: Deloitte Core Beliefs & Culture survey)
What drives a company? The answer might be the pursuit of profit. But as you can see from these statistics, solutions that relate to human concerns and considerations also show a strong correlation with success.
What defines purpose driven companies? You don’t have to be out to save the rain forest but you can’t do it without a strong mission to get there; one that relies on a theory of change to determine direction and metrics to measure progress.
According to Andrew Hewitt, the creator of the GameChanger 500 List, Whole Food, IDEO, Chipolte, Bright Funds, Google and Zappos are great example of purpose-driven companies.
How do purpose-driven companies operate? Here are 20 compelling characteristics of purpose driven organization.
WHY THE BUSINESS EXISTS
- Maximize benefit rather than profits
- Create an exceptional work environment that empowers people
- Deliver a product or service that creates a better world and can easily scale to larger regions
- Demonstrate beliefs through actions
- Make employees part of something that is bigger than themselves
- Compose a clear, comprehensive narrative
HOW THEY RUN THE BUSINESS
- Figure out passions of their people and how to put them to work
- Understand what motivates employees
- Help in achieving continued personal growth
- Identify what makes them unique
- Bring out the best in others
- Place the needs of others above your own
- Show who and why you hire the people that you do
WHAT MAKES THE BUSINESS GROW
- Connect with other people to build meaningful relationships
- Increase trust and transparency
- Focus not only on getting things done but how and why it gets done
- Do more than is expected
- Problem solve
- Be willing to show you’ll all in
- Develop effective indicators, Purpose needs measuring. It’s one thing to have an eloquent sounding purpose statement, it’s another to measure if you’re efforts are helping you meet your mission.
Do you work for a purpose-driven company? Are you interested in working for one. Do these characteristics help you in what to look for?
