The Importance of Regularly Evaluating your Purpose

We may not have been aware of it, but even as children we had purpose – to learn from parents and carers, life experiences and school. To learn how to be with others, enjoy life, communicate in social settings, and become intelligent adults.

Then, as young adults, we’re bolstered by an education, a career decision (even if it changes), qualifications, and those all-important social skills as we tentatively step out into the world.

As we proceed through life, we may lose our perspective and focus. We don’t know what our purpose is, or never had one. You may be working in an organisation with no clear idea of where you’re heading – you just know you want to get to the top (or maybe you don’t have a clue where you’re heading. Spoiler alert: coaching really helps with this!).

Wherever you’re aiming to be, there has to be a plan to get you there. And plans only work when you know what your purpose is.

It’s the same for organisations and educational establishments. Whether you’re an entrepreneur focused on business success, the CEO of a large organisation, or a school head wanting a high rating in education league tables, you probably know what its purpose is. But, when was the last time you checked in on it? Beliefs and values may have changed over time.

Finding Purpose Within Education and Organisations

When you’re working within a group, the purpose of that organisation probably isn’t solely about being profitable or creating shareholder value. Now, the emphasis tends to be on social responsibilities and valuing employees.

It’s good to see businesses of all sizes being more caring while balancing the needs and commitments of all. Not just your employees and customers, but suppliers and local communities, too.

The business purpose is part of your organisation’s mission statement. So, it’s important that you can define that purpose – the reason for functioning from the perspective of the entire organisation, as well as within departments – to clarify what your culture, values, and ethics are.

Regularly using my Purpose Triangle exercise will help you re-evaluate the purpose of your organisation, its departments and teams, especially during times of change. For instance, you could discover that your primary purpose is now on social responsibilities, whether that be public health, climate change, or income equality.

The Purpose Triangle

My Purpose Triangle was created out of years spent working with many different organisations. I’ve helped teams and individuals develop confidence and resilience, as well as clarity in their approach to work and life partly by using this process. So, the Purpose Triangle has been tried and tested many, many times!

Carrying out this purpose re-evaluation process is important to do during times of change or when there is a loss of motivation. To find out more about how to do this exercise, click here. It’s not always easy to do when you’re invested in the business, so objective help from an outsider, ideally a coach like me (especially as I developed this process), would really help.

First, consider what three things are important to you or your organisation. Then, decide on what two goals you would most like to achieve. The outcome of those will help you to redefine your purpose.

For instance, three important things for your department may be for your teams to be more productive, motivated, and to have a better work-life balance. To achieve that, you may find some of the following goals are needed:

• Improved or more frequent training
• Clarity and openness in what career opportunities are available
• Improving customer satisfaction through calls being answered within three rings, or responding to queries within 24 hours
• Better flexible working
• Becoming more open and supportive
• More health and wellbeing initiatives, such as encouraging staff to walk or cycle to work, or providing subsidised gym membership
• Access to mental health support and creating a more supportive environment; the charity Mind has some excellent ideas here

Your purpose may well end up being the need to streamline your teams to deliver your KPIs, so to do that they need to feel supported and comfortable within the working environment. There may be a wide choice making it difficult to hone down to the real purpose, which is where outside objective guidance can be really valuable.

Individual Purpose

Looking at the individuals in your business, each person will have a different purpose. Spend time with everyone to help them figure their purpose out. That way, you’re ensuring everyone’s purpose is aligned with the organisation’s overall purpose.

Doing the Purpose Triangle exercise with them will help them find that clarity. Referring to their latest job description as you work through the process may even highlight areas that need adapting to your current mode of working.

The Purpose Triangle helps to pinpoint areas where you, your business, or your employees need more help. Once you know what’s needed, create a plan to fill that gap. If you don’t have those skills in-house, you may need to train someone in the team or recruit more people. Or consider outsourcing – perhaps someone in your connections specialises in what you need.

Outsourcing is often an excellent alternative, especially if the function is a specialised service. For instance, I outsource my marketing and copywriting. My copywriter, Jenny Haken, has written my newsletters for a few years. I’m not good at writing grammatically correct, professional marketing material and don’t enjoy it, but Jen is and does! Plus, I don’t have the time. So, we talk and she turns our conversations into these newsletters, making my life easier while delivering the professional information that I want to provide to you.

But, back to purpose. Recently, my purpose was isolating when I came down with COVID-19 over Christmas. That wasn’t much fun, but the isolation meant my family were safe. And that’s very important to me.