FIGURE 9 WHERE TO FOCUS EFFORT FOR PURPOSE INTEGRATION
How important is it for an organization’s purpose to be integrated into each of the following areas? To what extent is your organization’s purpose actually integrated into each of the following functions and activities?
7.5
Strategy development
Branding
Formation and communication of culture/values
7.0
Business model
Marketing
Customer acquisition and training
6.5
New business development/market exploration
Operating model Product/service development
Leadership development and training
6.0
Performance metrics and rewards
Supply chain management
Vendor management
Talent management
5.5
5.0
7.0
7.5
8.0
8.5
9.0
9.5
IDEAL INTEGRATION
When asked what was required to better integrate purpose in their organization, many execu- tives replied that companies needed to offer better leadership development and training, along with performance metrics. figure 9 “You can’t just adopt it … It has to be driven, operationally and in depth, by the CEO and the top leadership team. That takes a lot of skill and understanding to do well, which is why so few companies really can pull it off,” Michael Beer said. It is essential that companies develop the kind of leaders who can communicate and align the whole organization around purpose. Said Beer, “It’s easy to state a purpose and state a set of values. It’s much harder to enact them in the organization because it requires you to continually search for consistency across many disciplines and many activities.” Ensuring that performance metrics and incentives are aligned with purpose is also critical, as it makes the tie between purpose and performance explicit for each employee. “Businesses are just beginning to understand how to integrate and measure performance tied to purpose,” according to Marc Ventresca.
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