High-Performance Companies Operate from Deep Purpose

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, doctor Elise Cortez. Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program. Thanks for tuning in again this week. I'm your host, Doctor Elise Cortes joining a live from Dallas, which is home base for me. If you don't know me yet, I'm a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, organizational lago therapist, inspirational speaker, social scientist, and author. My team and I help companies discover and articulate their purpose to embed it into their culture and operations.

1:23 We work with forward thinking or forward reaching organizations to develop inspirational leaders who create cultures where people actually want to come to work and do their best. And we provide programs like the Grab Your Gusto that enable individual team members to discover and unlease their passion and purpose at work to catalyze fulfillment, engagement, and productivity. You can learn more about us at how we Can Work Together at Eliscoortes dot com. With us today is doctor Ronja Gulati. He's a professor at Harvard Business School and an expert on leadership strategy and organizational growth. Until recently, he chaired the Advanced Management Program, the school's flagship Senior Leader executive program. He has authored seven books in including Deep Purpose, The Heart and Soul of High Performance Companies, which we'll be talking about in today's program.

2:06 He joined us today from Boston, Doctor Galani Galati, Welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank you, Doctor Corte. It's a pleasure to be here with you today, and I'm delighted to have a chance to talk to you and your listener. Thank you well. As you know, as we spoke at that before we got on air. I absolutely loved your gorgeous book. I've read it of courses I'm prone to do cover to cover, take copious notes, and I learned from you. So I'm really excited to share this really astounding work with with our listeners and viewers across the world. So let's start with the superficiality piece, shall we, right. One of the things that you say so well in your book is you talk about purpose, and of course I add in the meeting piece for that matter, are entirely overly and improperly used. And you said that most leaders think of purpose functionally or instrumentally, regarding it as a tool they can wield. Just say more about that. So I think, first of all, I was dying to have a one word title of my book, somehow to be the right thing to do right. I wanted to call it purpose. But the more I wrote this book. The more I researched it, and I went through eighteen companies and almost two hundred and fifty individuals, I discovered that I couldn't call it purpose because there was such a misunderstanding and misuse of the word purpose. I myself was confused. To be honest with you, if you told me five years ago, Ranja, you're going to write a book on deep purpose or purpose, or I told you you're crazy. No way. To me, purpose was mission statements more paper. You kind of put it out there and you forgot about it. You didn't do much with it, and so once

3:38 in a while parade it. You know, you showed two investors and or you're having your annual report, or in some motivational speech, you pull it out there, you put it on the walls. It's like it's decoration. And that to me then I realized that I had to get to deep purpose. I had to work my way through superficial purpose first. And even superficial purpose came in many so I had all these people say, oh, yeah, we're purpose driven, and I would say, like, well, show me how. And it was really confusing for me, at least because I saw a number of instances where on face value, they look purpose driven. The more you do it prove though you discovered it wasn't. Yeah, And I think it's the sad part, though, is they don't get any of the benefits of having a purpose tare and then it's a self fulfilling prophecy because then you say, well it isn't. It's a useless thing anyway. And that's why I say they use it instrumentally because they think it's a management tool, but more like tokenism than anything else. Mm hm, Well, I like your definition much much better. So we will be reading from some of your book because it's just so beautifully written. But I really appreciate that the way you contrast that what you refer to as deep purpose. Leaders think of purpose as something more fundamental and existential statement that expresses the firm's very reason for being. Rather than simply pursuing a purpose, these leaders projected faithfully out onto the world and in their hands. Purpose serves as an organizing principle that shapes decision making and bind stakeholders to one another. That sounds much better to me.

5:09 Well, thank you for that, but I'll shout out. But I will say one thing is as I even reflect on that, I feel I didn't clearly unpack two very key ideas that are kind of blended in there into one. The first is and that's on the cover of the book. By the way, finding a cover of a book that is called a purpose is impossible, Trust me, I understand purpose in there is very deliberate a compass. I saw that. I thought the same thing before we got on air. Yeah. That so. The first way in which people use purpose is as an orienting system. It's a way that orients where we are. It forces us to ask the question why do we exist? Through the why you are able to sharpen your strategic positioning? What where do we want to play?

5:57 Where do we not want to play? What markets do we want to sell, Which stakeholders we want to support? How are we thinking about our business in a multi stakeholder world we're in today. It just forces clarity and in stormy waters it gives you orientation the way it compassed us for ancient mariners. Onwards. The second part, though, which is very distinct, is purpose as an operating system. And the idea here is that purpose is a way in which things get done, meaning how employees relate to the organization, how your suppliers relate to the organization. It's the system we are using to connect with each other. Now, the classical system of organizing, which has been unfortunately dominated by an economic perspective, which is that the firm is a nexus of contracts. Right, everyone is contractually engaged with the organization. So I'm in a contract with you. You know, you pay me and I give you my time. So it's all about contracting my time. And you create what I would call our very inert you know, alienated organizations when we do that. And so how do you create an operating model where the connection the way you described even your own very purpose if you will, I was listening early on, is about creating a workplace where people feel connected in a different way to the organization. So the operating system is very distinct from the compass idea, Yes, I totally, I completely see that. And as we go, we're going to keep peeling this. This is just there's so much stepth that you have in your book that I of course, that's what

7:28 I what I crave and love and want to bring out to our listeners and help educate the world and bring people along so you're coming with and you're the one, you're the one spearheading us on. So you go on to say, and it just gets better, is you you actually found a study and then data study of your own. Of course, you did with companies that have gone through unusually deep with purpose, and that they and that they treated purpose as an existential intention that informed every decision practicing process. They adopted purpose as their operating system, as you just said, perceiving it as a vital animaty force with near spiritual power. That's so important, near spiritual power. People get freaked out about that. And as a result, they navigated that the tumultuous terrain of multi stakeholder capitalism for more definitely than most, increasing value for all stakeholders including investors over the long term. So there's really important things there. The spiritual piece and the long term piece is all really important.

8:20 It doesn't get talked about. So, you know, I think the world the reason I say you have to be all in is the world has become a very cynical place today. It has, yeah, especially around purpose, because so many companies have borne through the purpose charat right, what washing I mean? You know, Sata notos had a purpose. By the way, you should read Setanos's purpose, You should read Enron's purpose, should pharmaceuticals purpose. We all invoked this kind of nobility of intention. We are beautiful, we are responsible, we wanted to a better way. Look at what's happening to Spotify this week, right, that's not a case study to watch or Facebook. Right. When companies kind of parade a purpose and unfortunately you see a lot of this in some of the tech sector right now that they're suddenly emerging that everyone has been talking about a purpose, but it doesn't really mean much. How do we take purpose seriously and break this cycle of distrust to one way people actually buy into you? And you know you if I look at the companies, I looked at large and small companies, and so to me it was fascinating. I first saw it in small companies that start to grow fast. You know, the founder has a belief. And it wasn't just the ben and Jerry's and the Patagonias of the world. Right. I was looking at Gotham Green, I was looking at One Mighty Male, I was looking at Livongo. I'm looking at companies that are fast growth and when the founder either the company grows up and suddenly they're lamenting the loss of something.

9:54 And I wrote an article called the Soul of a startup because they were calling it in soulful term, like, oh, it's something you know, it's nostalgia about something was there. I was like what? And I discovered after some digging, one of the pillars they lost was purpose. That's how that connection to purpose so small growing too large. You can see that happening. Yeah, But then I saw large companies doing it. I mean the classic example is Microsoft with Satanandela, but I also saw it at Lego. I also saw it at Etsy. So it was not just small companies engage in a purpose exercise. Okay, So that gives us a lot more depth. And then there's another piece here yet still that we haven't talked about.

10:35 That we haven't that I haven't heard many people. Actually I haven't heard anybody talk about it this way. You also add one more element to this, doctor Coladi, and that is this notion of adding in moral values to the purpose piece, the purpose statement. So that is that when I see that, I recognize that by other companies that I've seen that I believe our practicing and operating through the purpose. But I've never heard anybody outright talk about the importance of embedding moral values into the purpose piece. Well, I think it's really interesting what has happened about the segregation of economic life from a human life. And somewhere along the way, in this pursuit of shareholder value maximization, we came to a belief system that businesses have no role to play in anything to do with society. Yet, lie, I'm neutral. I don't want to because that social stuff gets political very quickly, and we don't want business involved in politics, even though they are heavily involved in politics. But we go through this kind of idea that no, no, no, I'm not taking a stance on this loaded issue. I think society has shown us and individuals us that's not acceptable. Sitting on the sidelines is not a stance.

11:48 Not acceptable. Take a position, right, you saw about Delta Airlines had to take a position when it came to voting rights or other issues, very very challenging issues, you know, and companies take a hit for it, right Levi Strauss taking a stand on gun rights, or CBS taking a stand on tobacco. So you suddenly start to see society pushing companies to have a stance on these issues. The word moral creates makes people queasy because somehow it's somehow gotten this bad rap. You see. I think we have to understand that organizations have to come to realize they have to have both goals. I want to deliver profit. I want to deliver returns for my shareholders. Absolutely no, And well let's talk about that too. Purpose and profit. I want to come to that because that's another using source. But along with goals, there is duties and responsibilities we have. We're not just tax paying, obeying the laws. It is more than that, and society expects more of us. And you can see the Business Roundtable rewriting their purpose statement and saying we have to take a stance on sustainability. You can see Larry Finke's influential letters. Really, you know, advising public company CEOs, you got to take a stance and purpose becomes a kind of proxy or a litmus test.

13:09 By the way, and also, are you thinking long term not just short term or just by the quarter? Yeah? Yeah, So how do you bring all these ideas together? My goals, my duties, my long term vision, my short term vision. How do I deal with other stakeholders in my community and society. All this gets kind of wrapped around into this purpose idea. And I think the part I think is important to understand. This is something I've realized after finishing. A purpose of a company is not a purpose statement, right, So we kind of somehow and say, oh yeah, purpose means having a purpose statement. And you know, it's a really interesting financial pand a great article. I love the title. It was called the Baffling Search for Purpose in Purpose Statements. That's excellent. And a cruder version of that was an academic who wrote an article about more than a decade ago called sex Lies and Mission Statements. So, you know, I think we have to understand that leaders need to be able to articulate a purpose which may have to then become a statement. So there's a one liner that Microsoft did right best Buy and some of them had to revise it over time.

14:26 Best Buy has been through four Microsoft has been through three of them. Johnson and Johnson has a credo. They've kept the original credo, but they've evolved it over time. I've seen it. So I think the question is how do we go beyond a statement? How do we make it real how do we bring it alive? Yeah, that's we're going to talk more about that and believe it or not, we've brought got to our first break. It goes by so fast. I'm your host, Alice Cortes. We rure near with doctor ron J. Golati. He's the author of Deep Purpose, The Heart and Soul of High Performance Companies. We'd be talking a bit about his work and his research, what he's learned about companies who practice seed purpose. After the big We're going to hear more about how they actually pull it off. Stay with this will be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our

15:56 program today or to open a conversation with a lease send an email to a lease a Lisee at a lease Coortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. Thank you for staying with us, and welcome back to the program if you're just joining us. My guest today is doctor ron J. Golate. He's the professor at Harvard Business School and an expert in leadership strategy and organizational growth. He's the author of Deep Purpose, The Hard and Soul of High Performance Companies. I'm your host, doctor Releas Cortes. So why I talked about now we have to talk about how we operate this with this stuff. So one of the things that you talk about in your book that I again have not heard anybody address, is the notion of how you handle trade offs when you're working from purpose. So you talk about as you forge trade offs and communicate them by explaining how they connect to and support the purpose.

16:47 Being explicit. Being explicit builds cohesion, giving meaning to the sacrifices stakeholders are making, and further reinforcing the field of meaning emanating from the purpose, which is just gorgeous, Ronj. It's just gorgeous. Yes, well, thank you, doctor Cortez. I want to just say first things, purpose equals profit. Let me be very This is not charity. This is something that I had to come to realize. A lot of people think of purpose as CSR, which is a side show. So I put a foundation in place, We do a little outreach in the community, you know, we whatever whatever. Once in a while there's a tragedy. We kind of also put out some money, and we have a ear mark budget we have ahead of CSR. Purpose is working from the core of the business, not in some side show on the margins or periphery of the business. Right now, once you bring purpose into the center of what you're doing, into the very business itself, now you're thinking, I have to make some messy choices, and I have an article coming out next week and have a business review which is called the messy messiness of purpose. Because people somehow came out with this idea, this is what also okay, people say, oh, purpose means win win, I win, and you win, everybody wins. And some people have gotten really offended by this win win notion because they have come to this notion that purposes win win needs. Businesses only do good things when they make

18:18 money doing them, So show me the money. And I'm happy to write your check. Is there a brand value in it for me? Is there something in it for me? So I'm only going to play in that sweet spot where social benefit and commercial benefit intersect. And I found purp and I'm reacting, And a lot of it is think about individuals right now. You know some people who are purposeless, if I may say so, are people or don't have one yet. We tend to go through life reacting to the circumstances coming at us. We make choices based on expeditious kind of short term immediate thinking. Do I go left? Do I go right? Am I gonna eat Chinese or Italian? Today? You know? So I'm kinda like I'm making my choices. When we have a purpose, we become much more proactive. And when we communicate that purpose, other people in our orbit understand us better. And then if we use purpose as a compass when we make trade offs and choices, it allows us to be very clear. Look, I'm sorry I can't help you, but but I got to explain to you this is my purpose right now is to do this, and I can't do anything else for you right now. I learned this actually in an interesting way One of the companies I looked at was a company called Orsted, and Orsted is a company that completely reinvented itself as a green energy company in a little more than a decade. And the chairman said to me, he said, you know, purpose allowed us to make demands of our stakeholders. Instead of

19:53 reacting to our stakeholders, we could tell them I'm sorry, this is what I need from you. Remember, I'm trying to be and you open a pathway. Because I'm not going to be green overnight. It's going to take me a decade to get there, so my journey is going to be messy along the way. So listen, cut me some slack and help instead help me, partner with me, collaborate with me, as opposed to kind of making my life difficult. Mm hmm. So how do we create a model of engagement with the world at large around a common belief? And you know it's when it works, but it really works. But I think you have to convince the skeptics who still can't get over the idea. This sounds just too good to be it's too good to be true. I'm sure you've you know, you work with so many companies around this topic. I'm sure one of the first things you encounterbelon. Yeah. Oh, I've been laughed at many times. Oh yes, well, but you know, so here's a here's an essential ingredient which I wanted to get to next. It's being idealistic.

21:00 So one of the other great things you say, and I have to read this past because it's just gorgeous, is you say deep purpose leaders are the best kind of idealists, struggling endlessly to marry their dream seeking with the realist hard edge. The injection of reality doesn't pollute idealism, but rather it enables people with lofty ideals to actually improve human existence. And here's the greatest paradox of them all, and bending idealism's are to accommodate the messiness and imperfection of commerce. Deep purpose leaders ultimately do generate more value for everyone. Understanding and pursuing such value creation to the fullest can empower more leaders to do the hard, never ending, but ultimately fulfilling work of bringing purpose to life.

21:41 Yeah. So, you know, I have to say that I was so fortunate in this inquiry to encounter some extraordinary leaders, and you know, extraordinary leaders, and I think For me, that was really profound because I found that there is a different way to lead, a different way to imagine our organizations. And I want to come to the great resignation in a second with you as well. But you know, I mean I met John Olinto. John or Linto is the founder of One Mighty Male, which is a flour mill that is trying to really reimagine how we even source flour, how we process flour, how we then produce flower based products that are health good for us and not causing all kinds of other side effects. And at the same time, how are we going to be embedded in our community, how do we provide food for the schools in our neighborhood which are not so fortunate, how do we create the member and locating where we do? And that was not his first venture, right, he had a first one. He found it be lot good, so he did be good. And this I mean I wouldn't have met him otherwise or sat in Nadella Microsoft for extra and each of them talks about their personal journey into this topic. They talk about where they came from, because if you understand their own personal story, you understand what they're doing and why Satiya says that, you know, a defining moment

23:15 for him was his son, who was born with cerebral policy and it forced him to develop a deep sense of empathy and understanding of the world. Right. I talked to Nien Chaudhry the Sea of Panera, who tragically lost two children to a rare genetic disorder, one of whom died as a teenager like you know, and slowly over a couple of years, how that shaped who he is. So tragedy shapes some of us where we came from, shapes and that purpose then says, you know, I think I can create an environment where others thrive. I'll do a shout out to, you know, Arianna Huffington with her whole new venture called Thrive Global. I mean, the word thrive has so much to say. And I think if you look at the Great Resignation or whatever we're calling it, so this is another one right now, right, the Great Resignation, My God, people are leaving.

24:10 You know what the answer is, the answer is we've got to pay them more. In fact, CNN called it the Great Upgrade. An upgrade. Okay, fine, I agree. There are many occupations that desperately need an upgrade, and I'm so glad we are doing that upgrade. But I think people want more than money. I think it's completely agreed. Yeah, completely agree. Money for sure, everyone wants to get paid. But we're not human beings. We're not coin operated monkeys. You know, put a coin in me and I'll do a dance for you. We have other aspirations to and I think in COVID we've all come encountered death, illness, fear in a very very close way. And as you think about that, what happens is that we become we expect more of our lives, we expect more of our work. I think it's the great rethink. To me, what's going on is the great rethink of life and work. Now we leaders, what are we going to do about that? M M? And I actually I'm writing my next book as well, and we'll be addressing that as well.

25:19 So I have clients that but literally there are people are just flying out the doors, and so we're working with them to be able to address that. So you talk about four distinct benefits in your book that about purpose that I think can really help, right, And I'm completely with you, doctor Golatti that it's not necessarily about the money. There's so many other factors well being and do they care about you? And is this work meaningful? And my part is something that that's bettering the world? Right? So do you talk about four benefits? One of them is directional, so you speak to each of these four for us and kind of bring them to life for us. So absolutely, and doctor or I'm so glad that you know you and I are observing similar dynamics over here. People will recognize this. So I talked about the four benefits because of this purpose profit connection. So there's a huge effort underway among academics, consultants, and even finance people about trying to correlate purpose and performance. Yes, can purpose explain ten year, five year te total shareholder return? Can it correlate to growth and patenting or something or the other? And even how do you measure purpose in the first place. That's a pretty messy endeavor to begin with. I'm part of that effort. So I'm involved in a project where we're going to have large sample data on this topic. But I said, okay, I'm talking to people. I want to ask them how can purpose? I ask them, is purpose good for your business. And then the answer was universe. At least the company that I looked at was resounding yes, I said how, And through those conversations

26:52 I discovered four pathways. The first is the most obvious one. People show up to work differently if you're people buy into purpose. But if they buy into and then I have a whole discussion how do you get them to buy in? If people buy into purpose, then you're going to have an inspired workforce, not even an engaged, but inspired workforce, and that's a whole different level of productivity. Agreed. The second one is also obvious. Marketing. You will have talked about purpose branding that you know, customers are increasingly trusting of brands that stand for something bigger than themselves, So we have a reputational element to it. There's a third element, and the third element is is relational how do you connect to your community of stakeholders suppliers and I have examples of that. And then the last one is the directional how you use it as an orienting system. So I wanted to carve out and show now there are some companies doing all of them. One of them is a Swiss company called Bueler nobody here will have heard of Buela, but every one of you has been touched by Buler at some point in time because they make equipment that is the largest provider of equipment that processes a lot of the grain in the world. The milling machines. Right, they process lentils right or by the way, chocolates also, they have a chocolate process. If you are eating Linch chocolates or Nestlet chocolates, you know, so you have a lot

28:23 of products that are touched by that. And pasta pasta processing machines. So they if you eat pasta, most likely you've been touched by them. And they said, okay, first of all, food is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Okay, we're going to make our machines more efficient, so there isn't there's less waste, and we'll make them more energy efficient. But all impact is going to be fractional. The biggest energy footprint of food comes from besides, of course vegetarian and non where we'll go to the plant based protein is a different conversation is waste. Now, we because of our place in the food value chain, we know all of the players, every one of them buys our machines. Okay, we're going to bring them all together. First, what's our purpose? Our employees better buy in to our purpose. We're here to make the world a better innovating for a better world.

29:14 How are we going to do that. We're going to bring our whole value chain together, everybody together for a convening event, and we'll talk about why it's important and what can we all do about it. We're going to bring in experts. So how do you engage broader I think to understand that and then drive performance. Is it going to help their performance? Absolutely? So I think we have to recognize that purpose is good for business well and then yes, and then we got to we have to actually learn how to say that well. Right. So one of the other great things that you talk about is the importance of communicating the purpose with and just the way that you describe that so compelling. So would you say a little bit more about the Hey, these deep purpose leaders describe their purpose. So I thought it was fascinating doctor about is because you know, I can talk about strategy, I can talk about my goals, I can talk about a lot of things.

30:14 I can talk about my mission statement, I can talk about vision statement, I can talk about culture. How do you talk about purpose, especially further down in the organization. And there's a there's data showing there's an exponential decay in purpose understanding in organizations, done by a colleague of mind, George Serafim, as well as by McKenzie showing this exponential decay in organizations when it comes to purpose. And so you say, okay, what's the leader's job? How are you going to communicate this? Because people I saw do you are cynical saying oh God another one of the slogans? And usually and you want a purpose statement that is expansive and ambitious and as aspirational. But at the same time, the more inspiring and is the less concrete it is.

30:59 So how do you connect inspiring, expansive with concrete? And I found that the masterful leaders are amazing communicators and they do it through storytelling. They understand what we academics like to call it narrative, right, So they build a narrative, they build a story and they lay it out as a story in their personal story. So you know, if you read an article by Indra A. NUIs in the Harbor distr View last year where she talks about what she did at PEPSI. You know, she tells it as a story, like about her story and how growing up as a child, you know, there was no water in the house and her mother had to get up at three am to get one bucket for each child, so everyone had one bucket of water. And what does that mean? Growing up? Means that we have to really think about water conservation, especially in water scarce regions. And one of the biggest consumers of water is companies like Pepsi. So how do we need to think about the environment, about community, what is the role we play? That's a self story. Then it's like us we as a collective, we need to do something about it. And one of the leaders at PEPSI at the time was Frank Cooper, and Frank told me he said it was complete surround sound performance. So I think you have to understand how we engage with our community and purpose is good for business, but how you communicate it now because people have to buy it now. Even then I have

32:32 to say, doctor Poutter, I thought I had it cracked. They told a good story, but even discovered another wrinkle to this, which was surprising to me. And I was a little confused at first. A lot of them would make that employees start to do exercises about asking about their own personal life purpose. Another leader that I got to know was Matt Breitfelder, who was at black Rock at the time and now he's the head of HR at Apollo and Matt had this exercise rolled out where everyone had to think about their personal purpose. And I saw this actually also at Microsoft. Yes, you might have got in the book. Yes. And then I started KPMG, where they have every employee to write out why do I come to work?

33:16 And I was like, why do that? What company stuff? He said? And Matt explained it beautifully to me. He said, people will only resonate with a company purpose when they themselves feel a purpose in their own lives. Yes, yes, unlock. Oh, I'm not going to let you go. You know that. Right, We've got to grab a quick break, but I am not letting you go. You can run, but you can't hide. I'm very fast on my feet. I'm your host, Doctor Lequotest. We run on the air with doctor Ronja Galati. He's the author of Deep Purpose, The Heart and Soul of High Performance Companies. We've been talking about the gist of his book and his work. After the break, we're to talk more about how to treat those human beings that are inside the organization, powering the purpose, seeing what this will be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise

34:50 Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Alise A. L Se at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. Thanks you for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose if you're just starting the program. My guest today is doctor Ronte Golatate. He's the professor at Harvard Business School and an expert on leadership Strategy and Organizational Growth is the author of Deep Purpose, The Heart and Soul of High Performance Companies. I'm your host, doctor Les Cortes. So part of the reason that I am so attracted to this field, doctor Golotti, is is that to me, the pursuit and as it is so aspirational, right, it really calls us to be our best when we go down this purpose path. And so it's really hard work, right, this is not for the faint of heart. And one of the things that you talk about in your book that I think is really critical is you talk about how deep purpose leaders bind organizational purpose to team members' personal growth and development and just how riveted they are on celebrating the uniqueness of each human being and elevating that it's just it's beautiful. The way you talk about that, will you give us more more depth into that view on how purposelys are helping steward the growth of their employees. So, you know, I have to say, Kathleen Hogan, the CHR O of Microsoft, said it really well. She describes it as the following. She says, you don't really work for Microsoft

36:22 until Microsoft works for you. Oh, and you have to reflect on that statement because I at first was confused and what that means, because I thought, oh what even Microsoft works for you? And the idea was we want to elevate your life, right, and if we can't help elevate your life, then you know you shouldn't really be here. Now ask yourself what's behind that? So the first thing is I want Now if you say I want to climb Mount Everest and I want to go bicycling and I don't want to shop the work, then that's not for you. This is not a free for all that you know we're giving you a blank check and need to show up to work. No, we want to align what we do, our purpose with your purpose, and we're going to do our best to bring connection there. Our job is to empower with the world through technology. If you have an idea of something you believe right, even if it doesn't make Microsoft much money, we'll consider it. So John Kahan, one of the employees of Microsoft, had a very tragedy He lost a child to SIDS, and so his team on their own got together and that you know, we need to find a way to help researchers understand SIDS better. And they found that the data for it was fragmented all over the world. They use, of course Microsoft as zerr and they were going to bring all the data together, put it out there in public source to the Children's hospital in Seattle and said researchers, here is the data to help you. Now that was the pure I would say social project. But they also help employees discover commercial projects that

37:54 are connected to their personal being, right, and how do you do that? So it's about finding commercial and social and the intersection of the two. Now, such a will be kidding you, and he said that, he said himself that I'm not kidding that shareholders matter. We can only do these things that we are also delivering for shareholders. Right. I want to go back to this confusion that purpose somehow means I am sorry not making money because I'm so busy going stuff, because my purpose is make the world better. I think it's also about human aspiration. M I firmly believe now, and I'm really feeling that the one positive outcome of COVID is it's elevated our expectations of life. Yes, oh yes, and in that process and life includes work, And so I am pleased for those people who are willing to say if this job doesn't speak to me, this company doesn't speak to me.

39:05 I'm not going to belong here. And Neil Young said it beautifully. He said, believe I don't want to pick on Spotify. I don't know enough about it. But look at the words it's gonna eat your soul. Yeah. Right, So you know, you start to see people making those kinds of statements, right, saying that, hey, you should expect more out of the place you work and you better feel that personal connect. How do I feel a sense of pride of where I work? Right? And how do I feel more engaged? Now this is not I want to be very clear, and this is you can say this is just general Diffuse. I work for the World Wildlife Fund, so I feel good about myself and so all the Red Cross and I feel good. No, it also translates into what I do every day. So is the organization trusting enough to empower me to feel like I am doing something meaningful in the actual work I also do.

40:00 So it's across the board. Does that make sense? I mean it does, and you actually, for you the phrase that you use is caring leaders. You're actually referring to them as caring. I've had. This show's been on air for seven years now, and so I've had amazing conversations with people. We've treated a lot of subjects, including, of course the importance of developing emotional intelligence and you know, doing using that in your leadership, and also this notion of job purposing right and social purpose in your in your job, in your work. So yeah, I mean, I really appreciate your perspective that COVID has elevated what we expect of life, and I want to be part of champion that hire, which is why I bring people like you on my show. Well, thank you. I must say caring leadership is not my phrase. It comes from another really impressive individual I had a chance to meet, and that was Pete Carol Cattle Seahawks. Okay, they didn't have a good season this year, but we let that pass. But is it bad model of coaching? When he began doing it was quite radical in the NFL. Now other coaches also do it, and it was this simple idea that I care about you as a person. You're not just a worker bee, You're not a number, you're not a player, You're not like if you And by the way, doesn't mean he's not demanding. If you don't deliver, he's going to trade you or let you lose. But he said, while you're here, I'm not going to just be directing you.

41:24 I actually want to know you as a whole human being. Who are you? Why are you here on this planet? And that's engaging in that personal dialogue and invites them to think about their own purpose and builds a deeper connection with your coach. So, if we are going to be leaders as coaches, which everyone talks about, what does it really mean? And I think this notion that you want to get to know people as whole human beings. We all want to feel like we are valued for who we are, not for just the job we do. Absolutely, and I know this from the years of work that I've done an employee engagement work, Surveying that and studying that is most the most critical, the most commonly referred to element of what drives engagement connection, et cetera is being valued and appreciated. And I must tell you I wrote an article published about a month ago in the Harvard businesso You called what do your Black Executives Really Want? And it was co authored with my good friend and colleague Frank Cooper, who's the chief marketing officer at Black Rod, and we interviewed several dozen young black professionals, all of whom came out of elite background, elite universities, and an elite company is the best of the best, meaning every company is doing DEI and doing all

42:54 that. And I was shocking for us to hear that very few of them would recommend their place of employer to any other black professional to come as work there. And one of the themes there were several we talk about and I hope you'll read it. I would love to read it. Yeah, was this idea around caring? Mhm, does my boss really care about me as a person? What are my aspirations, what are my ambitions, what are my constraints? What do I need help with? You talk about and we use we use all the right words a mentory support this. But caring is a very simple and yet a very difficult idea. It is it so is all right, So we're coming close to at the edge of the show.

43:46 And the last thing we have to talk about, which is so critical, it's toward the end of your book. Here is you say, as powerful as purpose is when fully mobilized, it remains fragile. So how do we how do we steward this beautiful thing called purpose? Deep purpose? So look, it happens to us individually too, right. We may have a purpose in our lives, but then we get derailed. If something happens in our lives, we get whack left, right, center, or we have an opportunity comes up and we say, O, I forget the purpose. I gotta go for that. So we all have our kind of hiccups and roadblocks or whatever you want. But companies I found fascinating, and I actually saw this in iconic companies that once upon a time were you know, put on a pedestal, Johnson and Johnson like Trideau. And then you have about twenty years ago, a decade of scandal, you know, shutdown of factories, the CEO having to apologize in front of Congress, fines and you're like, what went wrong? Oh, you look at Boeing and the seven thirty seven Max scandal. Boeing was a really proud engineering company on the frontier of safety and aviation. What went wrong? And so everyone said, oh, it's the culture, you know, it must be the culture, and culture, yes, for sure, but I think if you really probe deeper, it was also kind of a you lose your way purpose and and so. And I also saw this especially in founder led company where the founder who personifies a company and then leaves and in some cases they come back. And when they

45:17 come back, you know, look at what Howard Schultz said when he came back to Starbucks many years ago. He said Starbucks has lost its soul. Steve Jobs when he came back, had the same thing to say as well. So there's something about organizations that is this kind of elusive but profound thing that we might call having a purpose, and that becomes an orienting system. I want to remind you again, purpose is profit, it's not. And I think I wish people would understand that that Look, here's a way to drive growth, achieve great success, and build a humane work environment where people want to come to work. What's not with that sounds good to me?

46:01 And I think you have been doing that. I think is as I look at what you've been doing, that's kind of the path you've been on, trying to get organizations to transform themselves into the workplace where everybody wants to come to work. Yes, that's what I've been up to, and Bula did that. I saw Bula in just a couple of years of doing this kind of purpose efforts, they became among the top most desirable places to work in Switzerland. It works, I know, I believe you. It works. I'm men. So we're at the end already, doctor Golotti. It happens. It goes by so fast. You know. The show is listened to white people across the world, and they are out to join us to help develop workplaces where people actually want to come to work, do their best, and we do business that better is the world? What would you like to leave us with today? I hope all of us should expect more out of our lives. We should expect more out of our work. Don't sell yourself short. As one young person I interviewed, who is a deeper leaders said to me, I had to ask myself what is my time worth? And the moment I did the math and I said to myself, that's crazy.

47:08 I'm selling myself short. And then she said, what's the right number? And she said, there is no number. How do I know? Allow myself to aspire to make a difference in the world, have an impact and of course be paid well, so I'm not saying it's not getting paid practical idealism. How can we reconcile those things in our lives? And I hope we expect more out of our jobs, more out of our lives and use purpose as the way into it smashing way to finish, Doctor Galatti, I thank you so much for joining me. You are a gift to the world. So nice of you to say thank you. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to share my ideas here and I feel really fortunate to have had students who nudged me to study this topic and really nudged me to do that, and for all the leaders who share their time with me to share their stories.

48:00 Thanks absolutely absolutely here here. If you want to learn more about doctor ron J. Galotti, his books are the work he does, you can start. There's two places I'm going to send you. One is his book site, which is deeppurpose dot net. The other is his own personal site, Ronjgalotti dot com. Let me spell that for you. It's r A n J A Y g U l A t I dot com. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch a re recorded podcast. We were on there with doctor Nathaniel Sincer talking about his book The Confident Mind, a battle Tested Guide to Unshakable Performance. Next week, we'll be on there with Lori Van talking about the real problems of burnout in the workplace and how many employees in this period of the Great Resignation are looking for companies to work for who will honor their wellbeing. See you there. Remember that works at least a third of our life. So let's work on purpose.

48:51 We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on W four C. Why Together, We'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, Leadership inspires and passion performance, and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.