I like straight talking. Scratch that. I LOVE straight talking. I spend much of my time with client organisations helping them to do it. Global empires, new start-ups, fat ones, thin ones – they are all, at times, in need of corporate elocution; the art of clear and expressive speech. But here’s the thing. Speech isn’t just about words. Adore them as I do, words play just one part in straight talking. Before words, one must understand what it is you are trying to say and to whom. In other words, (ahem!) you must be clear about your purpose, and you have to know that your audience is the right one, the one that shares that purpose too.
Organisations that understand their purpose, and pursue and express it clearly and single-mindedly, are more successful than those that don’t. It is as simple as that – so it’s worth taking the time to work it out.
So, what does a purpose look like and how do you discover yours? Simon Sinek in his brilliant book ‘Start with Why’ gives a stellar list of businesses which have all found fame and fortune based on crystal clear purpose. Steve Jobs gave Apple its purpose of challenging the status quo at a time when the anti-establishment zeitgeist was rising. They happened to make computers at the time – but their cause was clear and strong enough to lead them on to world-changing phones and music too. Global retailers Costco based their success on the single-minded belief that employees come first. Their purpose was to look after their own and trust them to look after the customer accordingly. Virgin’s Richard Branson is always popping up on Facebook with his version of this principle. My favourite is “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough that they don’t want to”.
In all these cases, a strong founder leader has imbued the organisation with a deeply felt sense of “the right thing to do”. As Branson said about the start of Virgin; “We knew very little about marketing or branding when we started Virgin Records, back in 1972. We simply formed the business around our personal values, and went from there”.
So, what happens when you’re well off the starting blocks but need to consider your purpose afresh?
This is one of my favourite challenges as it can often feel like ‘boardroom therapy’, with all the twists and turns typical of important transformation. It starts with deep questioning of the business’s real offer to the world – and matches this with some equally profound exploration of how the customer is truly motivated. Armed with clear insights into what the world really, really wants (in Apple’s case, an anti-establishment hero) together with how we do this best (eg by challenging the status quo), we can start to drill down into an expression of what, at its heart, this organisation’s purpose might be. Once discovered, that purpose can inform and direct every aspect of a company’s activities – inside and out. It is straight speaking at its best.
Like mining for diamonds, this process almost always shows that your purpose, precious and perfect, was there all the time. It just needed finding amongst the rubble – and maybe a little polish.
Haiku Consulting is a strategic consultancy which works with businesses and their leaders to define their central purpose. It employs a range of research and interrogative techniques to get to the heart of what an organisation is all about: its essence; its central pivot; its singular promise. It then creates the language and communication programmes designed to help articulate and pursue that purpose with clarity, dedication and precision. It coordinates and extracts maximum value from this creative expression by aligning external reputation activities such as Marketing and PR with internal change programmes and culture management.