The Right Strokes – ElPropósito3 min de lectura

The course worth following

How can defining a purpose help an organization, a person, or a group of people just realizing they need to become a team? In business there is one dimension that gets little or no attention: risk. Risks are all the situations we are exposed to that have some chance of happening. It is no secret that organizations with a defined purpose post better numbers of every kind, economic, social, environmental and financial. How is that possible?

A vision for your life or your company lets you picture the future you want and organize your resources to move toward it. In an organization, that means focusing effort and resources on getting there. A set of values matters just as much, because values define the behavior expected of each person. And crowning both vision and values is purpose. I know and work with companies that are very clear on these three legs of the table, and the fourth leg is objectives. What happens when one of those legs is missing, or only half built?

A purpose backed by vision, values and objectives is the right stroke, the path we have to follow. It may be the best indicator of direction we can have, which is why I love comparing it to a lighthouse or a compass: we are the ones who change course, and the compass keeps pointing the same way. Many organizations go to enormous lengths to build a strategic plan, and once it is done it goes into a drawer and everyone carries on as before. Peter Drucker captured it in "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." The more we slip back into old routines, the further we drift from what we long for. Living by values is hard for a reason: they describe the behavior we want, and it is very easy to slide back into bad habits and bad practices. That is daily life for many people and many organizations. When we commit to execution, though, what we gain is the chance to bring our course back in line with the compass, with the north that is always there. What do we see when that happens?

When people do what is right and their actions reflect their morals, what shows is a deep commitment to the world, to others, to nature and to their surroundings. They hold themselves and others in high regard, and they see the world in a light that lets them enjoy it and look at things from abundance. The same goes for organizations. Companies guided by values and a genuine purpose show a strong commitment to excellence and professionalism. They spread such good practices around them that they become standard-bearers and role models. Can you build a business doing the opposite? Of course. The bad news is that it won’t last. A short-term view will always fixate on today’s results and lose sight of strategy and of any vision for the future.

We all have the chance to make the right strokes. We all have a purpose in this life, so we can all live a life guided by it, and every organization has its own purpose too. Every time we move closer to that line, we shine and give our best. Every time we move away, we dim that light and slip back into the darkness of what is wrong, forbidden and amoral. If we all carry a set of values and a mandate for why we are on this earth, the question is: what do we still need in order to find that line, and what are we willing to invest to follow the best path of all?

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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