Building the Purpose Movement

There are some people that make their work just another thing they have to do, and there are those that make their work something that they want to do. Welcome to Working on Purpose with your host Elise Cortez. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration from those people who have found deeper meaning and personal connection to their work life. It's beyond nine to five, it's working on Purpose. Now Here is your host, Elise Cortez. Welcome back to the Working on Purpose Show. Thanks for tuning in again this week. I am your host, Elise Cortez, joining you live from Dallas, Texas, which is home based for me. If you've been tuning in for a while, you know this program is all about home people create more meaningful and productive personal and work lives, and equipping leaders inside organizations to cultivate meaning and purpose that elicits passion inspired contribution, innovation, and or severing performance. I talk with my guests to talk to draw on their expertise, and share my own experience consulting, speaking and developing workforces across the globe, and every week in these conversations, I hope you walk away with something you can put immediately to use in your life. And that you come alive with the possibility of living with passion, working on purpose, and are inspired to discover for yourself just how big and fulfilling your life, work and leadership can be. If you do catch fire from anything you hear, reach out and tell me about it, don't keep it to yourself. Email me at a lease at least Cortez dot com, or use the contact me feature on my website to message me and tell me how I can help you. Whether you want to join the distribution list to stay inform with these radio show topics, you want to see about joining a catch fire online inspiration, accountability or mastermind community, you want information on my purpose driven leadership programs for individuals or companies, or you want to see about having me speak for your company or conference. At any rate, I'm glad we're connected, and thank you so much for listening. Now back to this week's program with us this week is Paul Radoff. He's a certified management and president of Strategy Development Group. He has been a business consultant in Southern California for the past of thirty five years, assisting a wide range of middle market companies plan and manage their growth and success. He's the author of Thriving in a New Stakeholder World, Purpose as a New competitive Advantage. He judged today from California. Paul, Welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank you so much for having me. It's so great. It's so great, And I have to first just share I love telling my guest, how my listeners, how I meet my guests. And so here we were you and I minding our very own business at a purpose conference and Phoenix, Arizona in October. It was so great. Let me just give a shout out to Aaron Hurst and his team. They're imperative. They put on the conference fantastic thought leadership. So first, since that was my first purpose conference, I'm interested. Do you tend to yourself a lot of conferences? Are events focused on purpose? Is something you do? No, I hadn't done that. Actually, that was my second one, and it was my second one in that month. Well, because you know, I've been I've been dealing in this industry now for a long time, actually since two thousand and one, and concerned purpose, and I had never really thought about, well, who else is out there doing this kind of work? And then as I got more and more into it, it became obvious that there is a whole purpose industry out there, and there are all kinds of organizations and meetings and conventions and all kinds of things, and it was kind of amazing that it took me this long to kind of finally say, well, maybe I should go out and meet some of these people and see what they're doing. So that was that's how it all started. Well, that is so great, Paul. I feel a little bit better because I've only been in the purpose space for well, really, I guess fully for about four years now, so I feel a lot better because I was definitely my first. So given that you have been in this space for as long as you have eighteen years or so, what don't you take away from the conference? Well, it's very interesting because you know, a lot of the conversation has been how purpose you know, helps organizations in terms of increasing the level of engagement of its employees in that organization, and the conversation was really more about fulfillment as as the driver for organizations. You know, there's it's more important that employees feel fulfilled in what they're doing than than engaged. In terms of some of the research that's being done now. So it was interesting to have that conversation because up until this point I had only thought in terms of engagement, how do you increase the level of engagement of people in the organization, And now it seems that maybe there needs to be some thinking about fulfillment, how that really is is maybe an important driver in organizational success. So it's it opened my eyes to something that I hadn't really been aware of before. I appreciate that. Paul I too also got that that just very very clearly too. I have worked for a long time and with employee engagement, and I do now understand that the new term, really the new, the new the way to replace that term from engagement is now fulfillment. That's what we should be focused on. And I completely get that because of its pulling effect, right, how it pulls people towards something else. And you probably know about that better than most people do. I guess it's it's sort of like a bigger picture. So inside of fulfillment, there is engagement, right, So you know, if you have someone who's really fulfilled in what they're doing, they're going to buy a very nature be more engaged in what they're what they're doing. And then of course is to make sure that their engagement is actually useful. You know, you can get engaged but then not necessarily be engaged in what needs to be done so within an organization. So that's of course where organizational purpose comes in in terms of helping people see where the engagement needs to be uh inside of this fulfillment of of an individual's life so to speak. Well, the next thing I want to ask about because since you did say you've been working in the purpose space for since two thousand and one, but I know you've been consulting for thirty five years, so obviously before you got into purpose you were you were focusing on other kinds of consulting. So I'm interested to know just how you did land in the purpose space. It's very funny because I was in a course and we were in this course we read certain books and there was this book called sex Ecology and Spirituality by Ken Wilber who was the philosopher, and it's a very thick book, and I think in the course the first time, I think I read about seventy pages and you know, called it quits. But we did talk about this book in the course, and it's all about how different life forms from the very simplest to the most complex, which humans are, all follow the same kind of process development and kind of build on each other. And in that conversation I started thinking about, well, if the humans are the highest life form now, then what's next. In other words, it's been this evolutionary process and we're not the last. We're just in that process. So there's another higher life form coming, and as described in the book, it's not like it's going to show up all of a sudden. It's there probably already and just we haven't identified it yet. And so I was looking around and thinking like, what could this be, this higher life form be, And what came to mind was, well, maybe it's organizations. You know, organizations are not just more people. They can create things that you can't do just with people. You have people that interact in a way that gets you something much larger than the some of its parts. And that really intrigued me, and I started thinking, well, if if an organization is really a life form, then it has to follow those same kind of rules that other life forms do. And then so I started thinking, well, what is it? What does that mean? So I immediately thought of environment. So every life form's success and its ability to thrive and survive is really a function of its environment. If you think of any life form from the simplest plants, humans, it's environment. So if you're thinking about an organization, what's the what is defined as the environment for an organization? And I started thinking about, well, what about stakeholders. So you know, we generally think about stakeholders as employees, but I started thinking of it in a in a broader sense and say, well, maybe a stakeholder is any individual or group of individual that impacts or is impacted by the organization. And the sum total of all those different stakeholders, Well, that would be like its own ecosystem or its own environment. And I thought, well, maybe back can all that it's stakeholder world. So every like every human or every every other life form, the environment is you know, critical for its success, and so for an organization, it's stakeholder world is critical for its success. So then I started thinking, well, how do I get an environment, ecosystem or whatever you want to call it to be supportive of that organization? And then it just came to me like an epiphany, Well, purpose if everybody in the organization, and all of the individuals in the environment found whatever that organization is committed to its purpose, if they found it meaningful and important, then that could be that one thing that gets everybody in support of the organization. So purpose turned out to be the critical piece of And if I could have a purpose that's meaningful and important to all of these stakeholders, then that could be the opportunity to harness the power and resources of all of those stakeholders. And it changed my life. At that moment, I just couldn't believe it. Well, wow, and how do I do that? I mean, I get how important purpose is for an organization, but how do I get that purpose to really impact all of those different stakeholders? And then I started thinking about, well, what do we have to do to do that? And started working on looking at the organizations that I was working on and seeing how I could bring purpose to that organization and help leaders in that organization lead from purpose and see how that would impact the success of these organizations. And from that point on, I started working on a book to just deal with what it would take to lead from purpose in organizations. And it took me a long time. Took me about close to sixteen years to complete that book and figure out what might work and what wouldn't work, and set me on this journey that I've been on all of this time. Oh my gosh, Paul, that was worth the price of admission right there. Wow. Okay, a couple of things if I can one. It was so great to hear you render that because in so doing I could I was on your journey with you. The way that you brought us in that was just so gorgeous. And I think you totally able our listeners access to purpose in a way that I'll bet for them for a lot of them is very fresh. That was so compelling. And when I think about this whole notion of purpose, Wow, for you to spend so far eighteen years focused on this world of purpose, that's that's worth getting up for yourself. Yeah, yeah, because I could see that organizations are what changes the world. You can't do it by yourself. You need people, You need people together, and only by doing that do you create something unique. And all the great successes in the world have come through organizations, whether they be for profit, nonprofit, you name it, it's organizations. So how do I get organizations to just be far more successful in what they're up to, because there really is no reason to organize unless you're going to make a difference in something like why I organize? It's too much work, you know. The only reason you organize is to make a difference in the world in some way and just and if that's all they did, is could do that better? Wow? What an impact that could have in the world. Well, and I completely agree, and again so compelling. And don't we all love to work with somebody who's passionate about what they do, and you clearly do, Paul. And to that end, what kinds of companies do you serve? Who? Who do you work with? Without naming names? So I work in the small and medium size market, so companies that are anywhere from startups to generally fifty to one hundred million in sales, So that's these are companies that generally don't have a full time chief strategy officer or chief financial officer. And that's the roles that I play from my clients. So those are the companies that I work with, and I work with them on a part time basis. So at any point in time, I would have anywhere from two to six companies that I would be working with on a part time basis performing that those functions. And what I started doing is bringing purpose and I call it. I originally call it purposeful behavior in the book, but subsequent to that, I change that to purposeful leadership, which I found much more useful in talking about this and helping these organizations lead from purpose as well. So that's basically what I do is as business strategy, financial management and supporting them in purposefully leadership. So the size of companies are you know of this anywhere from anywhere from ten to five hundred employees is generally the size I work with. Okay, got it perfect, Paul, let's at this juncture. Go ahead and Graham our first break because after the break, I want to talk more about your actual book, what's in it. I'm your host. Elis Cortez. We've put on the air with Paul Ranolf. He's a certified management consultant and president of Strategy Development Group. He is also the author of Thriving in a New Stakeholder World, Purpose as a New Competitive Advantage. He joins the day from California. We'll be right back, stay with us. Elise Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with Elise Cortez. To reach our program today, send an email to Elise Alis at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on purpose if you're just joining us. My guest is Paul Radoff, a certified management consultant and president of Strategy Development Group. Paul has been a business consultant in Southern California for the last thirty five years, assisting a wide range of middle market companies plan and manage their growth and success. He's the author of Thriving in a New Stakeholder World, Purpose as the new competitive Advantage. I'm your host least Cortez. So, Paul, before the break, we were talking a bit about just how you got into the space, and I loved going on that journey with you, every yummy moment of it. It was great. Before we talk a bit more about your book here, I want to hear you talk a little bit about this idea of purpose as a new optimizer. Right. So, it's so funny when you think about how you get people to do things. You've really got a couple only only a few choices. You can bribe them, meaning you pay them whatever it takes to get them to do what you want to do, or you can course them in some way you know you've got something hanging over them or whatever it is, or you threaten them. Those are really the only two ways that you can get people to do something other than inspire them. You can inspire them to do something, and that's the secret. See, what purpose provides is inspiration. So if you're excited and inspired by something and you want other people to support you in that, then all you need to do is inspire them in what you're up to. And all of a sudden you've got all the support you need and you didn't have to bribe them, and you didn't have to coerce them. All you have to do is inspire them. So purpose is incredible in terms of leveraging resources. So you know my background, I'm an accountant. When you think about it, I mean most of my work over the years has been in the field of financial management and accounting. That's where I started. So I think about how do you get efficiency in an organization. You have to leverage resources, and the best way to leverage resources is by inspiring people, and not just your employees, but your suppliers, your customers, everybody you come in contact with. If you can get them excited about what you're up to, then they will help you in any way they can, even in ways that you hadn't even dreamed of. So that's the first real benefit of purpose. The second really key thing is that it allows for clarity and focus when you when you have a purpose, you know exactly what you're up to, you know exactly where you're going, and you can get clear in terms of what works and what's consistent with where you're going and what is not, what takes you off track and keeps you on track, And that's really very, very powerful. Most companies have a big problem in this area, especially successful ones, because the more successful they are, the more opportunities show up for them. And how do they stay clear and what they're really should be focusing on to be successful and whatever their their mission is and whatever whatever problem they are solving, that's going to make the world a better place. So that's really the power of purpose that was so nicely delineated. And I want to add just one thing to the whole import of inspiration that I always love to share when I speak about it, and that is that if we peel back and look at where does the work inspiration come from? Right, I'm sure you know this too and probably talk about it. Is it's I think it's Latin. It comes from the word inspire, which means to breathe, breathe into And so when when we think about inspiration, we can really think that it's about breathing life into something or someone. And I think that really really showcases the power of inspiration. I agree percent, and especially today where individuals are thinking about like what their personal purposes in life and then how that plays in with the work they're doing, because you know, they go to work most of the most of the time in their lives are spend at work. So wouldn't it be great if whatever they're up to in life personally was aligned with what the organization they're working for is up to as well. Yes, indeed, indeed, And I think you and I spoke about this, gentleman when we were at the conference. But Zach mccurio out of Colorado, he says that, you know, if life is to be meaningful, then work must be meaningful because we spend at least forty percent of our life there. And he says forty percent. And that makes so much sense to me, so much sense. Absolutely. And Zach, by the way, is on our board at the Foundation for Purposeful Organizations. He's one of our board members and very active in developing some of the tools that we offer. Well, I like the company you keep. I didn't. I had him on my radio late last year sometime I thought he was a rock star. So I'm gathering interesting people like you, Paul in my life. So thank you for saying yes to the show my pleasure. Well, let's talk a bit about the section in your book here. I wanted to really help our listeners. I always like to give them something they can literally walk away with and implement and news and make a difference in their lives and their work. And you've got a whole section in your book called Harnessing Stakeholder Power for the Competitive Advantage, and that's where I really wanted to spend a bit of our conversation. And you delineate a set of purposeful behaviors that enables organizations to manage their shareholder their stakeholder world, and I wanted to talk about a few of those behaviors, starting with knowing your stakeholder landscape. Will you say a bit more about that one. Yes, a lot of people don't realize how important it is to get clear who are you who is in your stakeholder world? And I define the stakeholder world, as I said before, is basically any individual or group of individuals that could be companies and people, other organizations that impact or impacted by your organization because they will impact you or you'll impact them, and that's going to affect your success in your survival. And understanding who they all are and which ones are critical for you in moving forward in your business is very, very important, and we call those key stakeholders. And actually we like to use the words stakeholder community. So there's a stakeholder world out there which are all of these people and you can't really you know, you may impact them on a small basis and you may not know who they are. That's fine, but if you communicate with them in some way, that's it's very useful because you want them on your side as well. But what you're really looking for are the key stakeholders, that community of stakeholders that are really going to be critical for your success, and knowing who they are is very very important, and because what you want to do is you want to focus on inspiring them, getting them communicating with them in a way that they are clear in terms of what you're doing, and that they find what you're up to meaningful and important to them, because only then will they really support you and think about you in a way that will really benefit the organization's success. So knowing who your key stakeholders are are very important, and they're generally under a dozen. So it's just starting with staring with the owner obviously, that starts. It starts there, or the president of the company, the key management people in the company, and key people to your key suppliers, your customers, certain professionals you might use and so forth. There are people and organizations that are critical for your success, and these are the people you need to inspire about what you're up to, and you need to get them on your side. And it's not enough just to have a customer relationship or a vendor relationship. You need to have a much more in depth relationship where they really understand what you're up to, and then they're going to be thinking about how they can support you all the time. And that's what you need for success. I got that beautifully narrated, Got that okay? Then next if we can we've got that whole stakeholder community then or the world? How do you help them? How do you work with companies to help uncover a broader purposed amongst them? So it's really an interactive kind of back and forth situation. The first thing you need to do is get clear is what is the problem you're solving in the world. So you have to be solving some problem otherwise why be here. There's many people confuse making a lot of money and profits with why the organization exists, and that's really not It might be why you're in business, but it may not be what the business is in business for, because people are not inspired by you're getting rich, inspired by what you produce for them and for the world. What difference you make for the world, that's what inspires people. So it's figuring out, like why you're in business, what difference are you making out there and getting clear on what that is, and that becomes the start of your purpose discovery. And it may not be so obvious. It could be it could be related to the product that you're making, or it could be something very different than that. Now give you an example. I have a client that's a foam fabricator. Now what does that mean. They buy They buy large pieces of foam, the kind of foam that they use to make mattresses, foam mattresses and the foam that you see in furniture, and they slice and dice this furniture, this foam up and that's and they glue it together and make different pieces and so forth. So they fabricate foam. So you would think, well, what's their business. Well, the reason they're in business is to create partnership. They believe strongly that great partners make great products. So they're in business not to make foam but to make partnership, to make partnerships with their suppliers, and partnerships with their customers, and partnerships with their employees, every all their key stakeholders. That community is stakeholders that are going to be critical for their success. They want to have be partners with them. And you can see that that's not even has nothings nothing to do with foam, right, but as everything to do with why this business is in business in the first place, because they feel that this is what's needed today. Because if you had businesses that are thinking partnership, they're going to be far more successful in what they do. So there's an example. So it's really getting clear like what is your purpose? And that's the step one. The next step is how do you make it meaningful and important to at least your stakeholder community, those key stakeholders. It's very, very often you can have a purpose that's meaningful, important to you or to maybe your customer, but maybe maybe your suppliers don't see it is that important. So it's a question of how you frame that that purpose in a way that makes it meaningful and important. And we call that broadening the purpose. And what's interesting about this process of broadening the purpose is that very often when you do that, you not only broaden the purpose, but you make it a higher purpose. And what a higher purpose is is any purpose that benefits more people. So the more people you benefit you as an organization, the higher that purpose is. Whereas broadening a purpose is the more people if that find that purpose meaningful and important. So those are two different things, but they go hand in hand. If you have a broad purpose, you will generally have a higher purpose. And wouldn't that be great if organized all organizations had a higher purpose. Yes, indeed it would be great. And of course you and I both know that that the exercise of arriving at this broader purpose takes some real looking, right, It takes some real inquiry, Yes, absolutely, you know, especially if there's a founder or if you're just if it's a company has been around a long time, then you have to look at the founders and why they got in business, what motivated them to do what they're doing, or if you're starting off on a new business, like, what's really motivating you? What's behind your interest in this area? Where do you you know what's inspiring you about what you're doing? Just getting just trying to get an understanding and discovering what is what's driving your interest this way, companies just don't form by themselves for no reason. There is a purpose, there is and very often it just requires discovering it, looking into why this is important, meaningful and important to you as an individual. That's where it starts. Now, you gave us a beautiful example with the phone company and how they're really they're really motivated. Their purposes is to create partnerships. Can you give us an example of a company that you know, over work with that has uncovered a stronger purpose for themselves. Yeah, I'll give you an example. So I have another client that's a that's in the staffing business. So what they provide is employees to different communities as crossing guards. So across the country they have hundreds of communities where they provide thousands of crossing guards, school crossing guards. And they actually have thought of themselves for years as the crossing guard company, and which was you know, very successful company, and that's what they do. They provide crossing guards and they just they just do that. So not too long ago, they were trying to figure out a way of getting their employees more work because you know, crossing guard only works a few hours a day, and you know, how do they keep these people employed. You know, if they're only working a couple of hours, it's going to be very difficult to you know, retain these people if they have to make a living. So they were thinking, well, what other work can we get them to do while they're being crossing guards? You know, in the other hours of the day. So while they they're in the guard business, they're you know, maybe it's security. Maybe they could loan them out to local warehouses to keep the area safe, you know, and in that way, maybe we can get some work for them and and and give them maybe a full aurs of work every day. So they started going down that route looking for what kinds of other businesses out there could use these individuals. And then we started talking to them about like like what is your real purpose? I mean, yeah, we understand you're in the crossing guard business. That means that's what you do, but why do you do that? And they started thinking about like like why do we do this? Why why are we providing crossing guards? And this is a two generation company, and they started thinking about the original individual that started this company, which happened to be a policeman and he's all about keeping children safe, and they said, yes, maybe maybe that's it. So what they realized is that they were really in the business of keeping children safe. That was their business. So then they started thinking, well, wow, it's keeping children safe. So that's what our guards should be doing, keeping children safe. So how is going to a warehouse and being a security guard for a warehouse keeping children safe? And they realized that that's not what they should be doing. So they prevented themselves from going off track into an area that had nothing to do with their business and could have actually gotten into a lot of trouble. But now they realized that they need to look for opportunities to keep other children safe in other areas. And what they did is they found that there's a need for aids on the campus of these elementary and junior high school primarily elementary schools, so that they could provide safety aids to campuses. So now instead of just keeping children safe at crossing and you know, at school crossings, they can now keep children safe in schools dramatically increasing the number of children and they can keep safe and just imagine if they've got if they've got six thousand guards out there or ten thousand guards out there, and they've got all of these children. You know, it's amazing, and millions of guard million, millions of children they're keeping safe every day. Is really an exciting thing for an organization to be committed to. Oh my gosh, Paul, that was great. Now hold on, just hang ont of that, listeners and just enjoy that. We've got to grab our last break. That was that was mind blowing that the company would spend that kind of effort to go looking for that broader purpose. Paul, beautiful narration. Thank you. I'm Elis Cortez, your host. We've been on the air with Paul Ratoff, a certified management consultant and president of Stress Development Group. He is the author of Thriving in a New Stakeholder World, Purpose as the New competitive Advantage. You joined today from California. Stay with us after the raek. We're talking about how to keep purpose alive. Elise Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with Elise Cortez. To reach our program today, send an email to Elise ali Se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on purpose. If you're just tuning in, my guest is Paul Radoff, a certified management consultant and president of Strategy Development Group. Paul has been a business consultant in Southern California for the past thirty five years, assisting a wide range of middle market companies plan and manage their growth and success. He's the author of Thriving in a New Stakeholder World, Purpose as the New competitive Advantage. I'm your host, Elise Cortez. Paul, that was a fantastic story that you told before about the company that really went looking for its broader purpose. That I really think that gives our listeners access to something for themselves. So the next thing I want to talk about is is how do we keep a purpose alive in organizations? Once we find it, how do we keep it alive? This is a big challenge and this is this is not it's not that easy and others. You have to work at this like anything else. If you if if you want success in something, you have to work at it. And there are really four areas that we focus on in in in getting purpose really involved in your organization and operate in leading from purpose within an organization, and those first having the having a purpose obviously embracing a purpose is critical, and then engaging your stakeholder world is important. But also you have to design your organization around purpose. And and very often, you know you very often organization start with whatever they're doing now, which is their business model, and they say and they and they, and they don't realize that that's not necessarily moving them towards fulfilling on their purpose. So it's redesigning or thinking about looking at your organization and what it's doing and is it really fulfilling on its purpose. So this is a very important area and we spend a lot of time in helping organizations revisit their their business model and make sure that it is fully aligned with with with what their purpose is. And of course the other area is is all of the actions that they take in the organization, like does the organization have a culture that supports fulfilling on their purpose. This was very very important specifically with this company, the Foam Fabricator, that had to look at it its core values and change the change its values so that it was fully aligned with creating partnership among all of its key stakeholders. So it's very important to have a culture that supports purpose and design an organization that supports purpose. And one of the key things that I find very effective is identifying a measure of success. Very often organizations measure their success by various things they do inside of their business model. Like they'll measure sales, they'll measure a number of customers, they'll measure profits, they'll measure productivity. All of these things are really very simple, they've been developed over hundreds of years. We understand how to do this and it's all measuring your business model, how you operate as a company, and what you do, but why you do it is very different, And how do you measure how do you measure fulfillment of a purpose? Like how would you measure partnership? How would you measure keeping children safe? These are the key things. Figuring out your purpose is one thing, but then finding ways of measuring your success and fulfilling your purpose is critical to staying on purpose. If you don't measure, you don't do something. We all know that we've grown up with that language. Well, how many companies you know out there actually measure purpose, measure the fulfillment of their purpose? Very few, because it's not easy and as you have to work and figuring out how to do that. Yes, indeed, that was again such a great piece of access there, Paul, And that makes me really want to ask you. You gave us a couple of examples before about companies that have found their broader purpose and how they've gone about it. What I'd love is if you've got an example somewhere in there that you can share, whether it's someone you've worked, whether it's just in a company that you know of that has managed to create that broader purpose and in so doing it made a difference to their stakeholder performance. Can you speak at all to that. Yes, well, I think the Phone Fabricators is a perfect example. You know, they've had they've had problems with personnel for years and this is a big this is a big problem, and in the fact that it's hard to get people to work in factories these days at the lower price range and labor costs and had tremendous turnovers and it really affects your success and your your productivity. But once they started focusing on treating their their employees as partners and dealing with them in that way, it totally transformed the way the business operated. And now there's a real sense of community among the among the workforce, there's a lot of support for each other. Their turnovers down, and it's really it's really had a big impact on their level of productivity, which has continued to increase over the past several years as they've been working on this awesome paul. I had to imagine that would be some of what you'd see for a change in performance when you start seeing people showing up more frequently and not being late, not taking too many sick days, going the extra mile even when things get tough. Those are all indications to me back to the beginning of our conversation, how this idea of creating more of a purpose in our in our culture and environment translates to what we used to call engagement and now shows up as fulfillment. Yeah, that's true. I guess that's true. It's it's engagement and fulfillment. I hadn't really thought about it from that perspective, but yes, so it's It's very true. People do ful fulfilled a lot more in working in an environment where they see that what they're up to and what the business is up to our lined m Well, speaking of that whole question about fulfillment, Paul, you know I can't resist asking you the question because you might remember that I have been researching meaning and work and identity for a long time, so I want to know what is it about the work that you do that you find meaningful. I know you're passionate about it, but what is it about it? Well, it's funny because I had never really known too much about imperative. I read I read that Aaron's book. But when I went to that conference, one of the things that they suggested I do is is take that little assessment tool that they have where it actually helps you figure out what your personal purpose is, because I really I really hadn't thought about that much for myself, like what my personal purpose is. And one of the things that I discovered is I really liked building things, and I had not really noticed that before in my life. But it's clear to me that what I've what I've done all my life is kind of build things. And this whole effort that I'm involved in now is really trying to build a movement around purposeful leadership and is really consistent with what I love doing. And not to mention the fact that back in two thousand and one, when I when I came to this realization how powerful purpose can be, I made this promise to myself. I made this commitment that all businesses will be committed to making a profound difference in the world. And I actually put a date on it. I said I'd do that by twenty twenty five. So I've only got five years left to work on this. But there's a sense of urgency around trying to get every business to start thinking about how they can lead for purpose. Oh, Paul, that was just stunning. Now, So what I would what I have to say to that really quick listeners, did you hear that the man needs some help? Okay, he can't do it himself. He already said that. So you've got to step up. You've got to help us. You've got to help us. Join this movement, be part of it, and start really working on helping your companies be purpose led and perform its driven. I mean, that's that's right, Paul. You can't do this spare yourself, especially in what six years. No, that there's a lot to do. There's a lot of companies out there that need this, that want this. There are a lot of companies out there that that already have a purpose, they're a think, but they have no idea how to really bring that into the organization and to actually lead from purpose. Yeah, I think you're up. So that's what I've found as well, Paul, is that people people talk about it, they get excited about it, and they and they can even talk about a purpose from their vantage point, but they're not really running and leading their business from purpose. Yes, And that's what our foundation does. It provides a platform to support leaders and leading from purpose and gives them the tools, the practices, a community of other leaders that are that are engaged in this it's a collaborative platform that supports their growth and development in this area of purposeful leadership. And you can find out about this that lead from purpose dot org, which is the which is what our foundation website is listed under. All right, so lead from purpose dot org. So since we since Paul is building a movement, if you want to be involved in something worth while, now you know where to go. So, Paul, in our last just a few minutes on the show here, I'd like to leave my guests with the last word, if you will, So you know, the show is about helping listeners across the globe more meaningfully and productively connect with their work. What would you like to leave them with. I think it's so critical to figure out what you want out of life and what's important to you, and to make sure you get that from the organization you work for, because there's nothing more important than having a fulfilled life at work. Oh that was the way to close, Paul ran Off. Thank you so much for joining me and being my guest. I've been so looking forward to this conversation since I met you last October. You got to come back deal my pleasure. Okay, so much for having me. You're welcome. If you want to learn more about Paul the working his team do at Strategy Development Group, or his book Thriving in a Stakeholder World, visit their website it's Strategy Development Group dot com. Last week, if you missed the show, you can always catch a recorded podcast. We were on the air with Rachel Quisold. She's an international trauma specialist based in Sydney, Australia, and her specialty is helping people recover rapidly from pain, trauma, illness and master their psyche so they can live a healthy, happier life. It was a great end lengthly conversation as you can imagine. Next week will be on the air with Max Hanson of Ye Scouts, a recruiting firm that helps leaders hire on purpose so their businesses can have their greatest positive impact. See you then, Remember that work is at least one third of our life, so let's work on purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune in to Working on Purpose featuring your host Alice Cortez, each week on the Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, find your life's purpose at work