Navigating Company, Team and Individual Purpose: Prioritising and Rediscovering Your True Direction

Frank Gaine at UXDX EMEA. Video: https://youtu.be/s64x01IdroM

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

A flag on the hill: why purpose matters

[00:00:08] In 1962 President John F. Kennedy visited the NASA Space Center, and as he made his way down the line of people that were excited to see him, he came across a gentleman in overalls. He said, so what do you do here at the Space Center? And as the gentleman produced a sweeping brush, he said, I'm helping to put a man on the moon. Now this is a very good example of a common shared goal and how it motivates everybody, from the person in the shuttle right through to the person cleaning the corridor. And seven years later they put a man on the moon, by all accounts.

[00:00:53] Having a purpose is a bit like putting a flag on a hill that everybody can see. If I make the analogy of you working at your job day in, day out, it's like you're making your way through a jungle. You've got your machete and you're hacking at the dense vegetation, and you're being attacked by all these strange insects, etc. Having a flag on the hill is a bit like being able to climb a tree, look around the horizon, see the flag on the hill and say, guys, this is where we're going, to reset your focus and your purpose.

[00:01:31] So look, the goal of this talk is to either find or create that purpose. When I'm talking about find, it might be that your company already has one, so it might be a good idea to try and see if you can unearth it. When I say create, I mean for you as a team member. Maybe the team needs a purpose, and we'll see all the benefits of having a purpose in a second. We'll also touch on the power of having a purpose as an individual.

[00:02:03] I'm sure you've heard this all before. Oh yeah, we were in a presentation six months ago, they said we're here to inspire human progress through the power of communication, blah blah blah. I'm sure a lot of people see this as corporate BS, and it's true that in certain circumstances the purpose statements are a little bit too aspirational, or they're not lived by the company, or they're choosy in terms of how they apply it. But this might be a symptom of the company not climbing that tree often enough and saying, remember what we said about why we exist as a company? These activities that we have, charging extra fees for something that doesn't provide value, is that really what we should be doing?

[00:02:45] So having a purpose is great for focus, as we'll see in a moment. It's also probably a symptom of them not being held to account to that purpose often enough, and again we'll see the importance of everybody being able to access, or being aware of, the purpose statement.

The power of purpose

[00:03:06] The power of purpose is real. One of the major things it gets you to do is to focus. Steve Jobs always said that he always knew the thousand things to ignore and the three things to focus on, and look where it got him. It also provides great motivation. We saw that if everyone believes that we are going to put a man on the moon, it motivates everybody, right from the astronaut in the shuttle to the guy cleaning the floors around the corridors of the Space Center.

[00:03:40] Having a purpose also can attract customers, investors and employees, because as Simon Sinek said in that very famous TED Talk, people buy why you do something as opposed to what you do. And we've seen that Generation Z, or Zed, at the moment is very motivated by why you do what you do and the values that you live through your products and services and the way in which you treat customers.

[00:04:11] Having a purpose also gives a license to innovate, because if you look at the text of a purpose statement, there can be lots of nuance in there that allows you as a designer or a developer to get to that flag on the hill in a creative way. And finally, business impact. Harvard Business Review says that companies that are purpose-driven perform 5 to 7% better than companies that are not, and they grow faster. So look, the power of purpose is real, and we'll see that for a company, for a team and also for an individual.

[00:04:51] Now already today I've probably talked about purpose, vision, mission, and you might ask, well, what's the difference? There is a difference, but I get confused as well. What all of these equate to is having an ambition statement, again a flag on the hill that everybody can see and roll towards.

[00:05:15] Good purpose statements are derived inclusively, so you've had a chance to contribute to the purpose statement. Like good design practice, you were a stakeholder in the final outcome. They're not just forced upon you; you're aware of their presence. Good purpose statements are concise and descriptive. They're inspiring and memorable. As we'll see in a moment, mantras are a very effective way of distributing what you need people to remember in a company or a team. They're authentic and relevant, and also they're maintained as the business culture or as the socioeconomic factors around the world change. And most importantly, ambition statements work when they're cascaded, when they make their way down through the company to the individual level, and we'll see some good examples of that in a moment.

Patagonia and Dublin Bus

[00:06:13] Okay, so let's talk about Patagonia. Anyone wearing any Patagonia attire today? Some hands up there, very good. Patagonia's stated purpose is "we're in business to save our home planet." A very laudable ambition statement, and this translates into sustainability being interweaved through all of their activities. Indeed, this is a picture of the label on a Patagonia garment. It says repair this garment, as opposed to go and get a new one, which is something that cuts through in a crowded marketplace among all the other competitors that you can list off the top of your head.

[00:07:00] And the good thing about this deep commitment to sustainability is that it also has a business impact. According to the University of Michigan, sales for Patagonia have quadrupled over the last 10 years, a lot of it to do with the attribution of this ambition statement.

[00:07:21] Okay, Dublin Bus, the primary public transport provider here in the city of Dublin, Ireland. Did anyone take the Dublin Bus to get here today? Yeah. Did it arrive on time? Okay. So if you look at Dublin Bus's purpose statements, or the values that they espouse, they talk about connectivity and sustainability and safety, and very importantly they say that every journey matters. Now this is a good example of not everybody being on board, through the organization and their partners, with this statement.

[00:08:01] Customer satisfaction statistics at Dublin Bus aren't too bad, actually, according to their own website, but there is a black hole when it comes to one particular thing, and that's when buses are late or buses don't show up at all. Late buses, ghost buses. And when you hear stories that drivers are told by their representatives not to fix the side mirror on the bus and to wait for a maintenance crew to show up, which might take hours or days, with the effect that the bus is delayed or never leaves the depot, you really have to question if everyone is on board with this "every journey matters" mantra. Because think about the student waiting in the rain, the student that doesn't drive and needs to get to an exam and experiences a ghost bus, or the person trying to get to the hospital to see their loved one. These journeys matter, and this is an example of that message not cascading well enough.

Hershey's, WeWork and An Post

[00:09:03] Hershey's confectionery, a very good example of a course correction. Up to 2007, Hershey spoke about undisputed marketplace dominance. They spoke about profit and growth and scale and USA. But in 2007 they had a road to Damascus moment. They went from Gordon Gekko to almost Walt Disney. Now their purpose statement reads something like "bringing moments of Hershey's happiness to the world."

[00:09:42] So you can see how, when we spoke about authenticity and relevancy previously, you might begin to think about this, how they changed so quickly. But in the intermediate years they have turned around their focus to great effect. They now talk about inclusivity and sustainability and respectable business practice. They've diversified into healthier snacks, they have focused on premium chocolate with better profit margins, and they've gone global. It wasn't so much now about the USA, and this is a picture I took at my local convenience store in Dublin. Really good example of a course correction.

[00:10:21] WeWork. Anyone work in a WeWork? There's a few hands there, very good. They again originally started out talking about bringing flexible co-working spaces to startups, freelancers and small business, and they talked about collaboration and belonging and affordability and flexibility. They then started to regard themselves as a major real estate company. They invested in premium locations in very exclusive parts of town, they diversified into co-living and education, they burned through cash, they treated themselves to private jets and everything in between. And the result was that they went off course, resulting in a very badly formulated IPO a number of years ago, which was eventually pulled. So that's an example of where purpose was neglected.

[00:11:25] Now my final example is An Post. An Post is the national postal service of Ireland, and it's been around since the formation of the state in the 1920s. An Post translates from Irish Gaelic to "the post," effectively. For decades it was seen as an old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy organization. It was slow, and even up to 2017 a loss was posted of 12 million. Now two years later, only two years later, they posted a profit of 40 million, and you wonder to yourself what changed.

[00:12:08] Well, this chap on the top left has something to do with it. New leadership, David McRedmond, the new CEO, and also a change in their stated purpose. Their stated purpose is, and I took this at a conference last year where David McRedmond was speaking, "we exist to improve the quality of life for people in Ireland, for now and generations to come." Quality of life for people in Ireland, now and in generations to come. A lovely sentiment, actually.

[00:12:40] And he went on to explain what quality of life meant. Again, there's a nuance in these statements that you can interpret, but he said that quality of life meant that An Post will provide accessible financial services to people of Ireland on the high street, in an environment where all the banks were closing in small towns and villages. We'll still be there for you. It also means that they'll innovate, in things like the digital stamp, the world's first trackable digital stamp, which I use on a frequent basis. Very, very good. And also they talk about e-commerce fulfillment. We know that everyone's doubling down on buying online. We will be one of the best providers, if not the best provider, in Ireland for that service. That's quality of life.

[00:13:25] So I asked David after this conference. I ran down the stairs and said, David, do you mind me asking before you go, is that really real? Is that pervasive in your company, or is it just what you say at conferences? And he said, yes, it is pervasive, it's mentioned frequently and everybody in the company knows about it. So a really good flag on the hill there.

Cascading purpose through the company

[00:13:52] As David has proven for us, cascading a purpose through a company, through teams and individuals, is vitally important. So what are the keys to cascading? Well, one of the things, as you probably might know, one of the keys to learning and recall is frequency and recency. The more frequently you hear something and the more recently you've heard it, the more likely you are to remember it and to be able to apply it. You also need to train your managers to be able to communicate this, and you need to infuse it into onboarding and training and throughout the whole process of how you communicate with employees.

[00:14:37] And one of the most effective ways to do it is to write it on the wall. I used to work for Vodafone over a decade ago, and I still remember two mantras from the company over a decade ago. This was written on the wall at the headquarters in Newbury in the UK, and it was how they wanted you to remember the Vodafone way. The Vodafone way was how you do business, how you treat each other, and it was speed, simplicity and trust. Speed, simplicity and trust.

[00:15:11] There was another very good mantra that they used to summarize the values of the company, and it was restless, rock solid and red. Restless: we're always innovating, we're trying to do our best for the customer. Rock solid: we have an amazing network, it's the most robust and best in the country. And red: it's the color of the brand, the color of passion, the color of blood, the color of love. Very effective. Again, that's over a decade ago and I still remember those three things.

Purpose for your team

[00:15:42] Okay, so we spoke about the importance of purpose for a company, and you might be saying to yourself, well look, I've seen it, I may or may not have been involved in it, I spend most of my time on Figma or designing code, why does it matter to me? Again, I think the benefits of having a good purpose are available for you as an individual and also for your team. So remember those benefits: focus. What are the other ones, anyone remember? Focus, innovation and motivation, and the others.

[00:16:21] So if your team feels like it doesn't have one, maybe that's an exercise you could do. Maybe show them this presentation and say, look, there are benefits for our team having a purpose. It could be derived from the company purpose, interpreted for your particular remit.

[00:16:40] When I was head of digital design at Smartbox, I had a presentation that I gave to all new joiners and also to parts of the business that I hadn't met before, and one of the slides was our purpose as a design team. Again, there's lots of nuance in the four sections of it I'm about to tell you. It was to create commercially effective products that are a delight to use, to bring the company closer to the customer, and to communicate our impact. So there's lots in there. As you know, delightful design is made up of a few things: if something is useful, usable and engaging.

[00:17:27] And the last part of it, when I came to talk about communicating our impact, that's really important, because as you know it's not a great time for recruitment and opportunity for designers in the market at the moment. To maintain your tenure at an organization, you need to prove your impact. You need to communicate the effect of that change you made on a web page that brought more signups, or that extra design element that you added to the checkout that ended up in more conversion, and communicate back to the business, because they'll go, all right, those guys are of value, so let's treat them benevolently when the next round of redundancies comes around. So if it's not there, if your team doesn't have a stated purpose, give it a go. It might be a nice team exercise.

Purpose for you as an individual

[00:18:20] And how about you as an individual? We talked about the power of purpose for a company, for a team, and now for you as an individual, so it's nice to close the loop on this one. Now this might seem like a strange question: does anyone here have a personal purpose statement or an ambition statement? Okay, nobody. Okay, there's one over here, very good.

[00:18:44] So again, the benefits of a purpose statement are available to you as an individual. Focus, motivation, better financial gains potentially. And this isn't a moment of self-help or a therapy session. I'll charge a lot more for that, even though I'm not qualified. But the benefits are there, and remember a good one is concise, memorable and easy to apply.

[00:19:15] In preparation for this talk I asked a friend of mine, Jen, let's call her Jen, to have a go at creating a personal statement, and she did, and it was quite a fascinating exercise. She is 50, she has two kids, she has a mortgage, her parents are getting older, and she's very, very aware of the cost of living crisis and all the political madness that's going on in the world, and is very understandably nervous about it for her and her children. So I said, have a go with a personal purpose statement and let's have a look at it together.

[00:20:00] This is what Jen came up with initially: to enhance the quality of life of my family and the community, navigating challenges with positivity and resilience. Pretty good effort, pretty good effort. I wonder if ChatGPT was involved in that. So I spoke to Jen afterwards and I said, well, let's take a look through it. To enhance the quality of life: what do you mean by quality of life? She said, well, I want my family to connect more with nature, I want better food for my children, and I want them to spend more time with my aging parents.

[00:20:38] And as we went through it, two things stood out to me as being missing. I don't know if many of you have been on a flight recently. Hands up. Oh, there's a few flyers here. So remember the safety announcement that they make. It's like, in the event of emergency, tend to your own face mask first before you attend to that of others, because you need to be fit and able to be able to put the face mask on your loved one who might be relying on you for help.

[00:21:11] The point of that is, if you don't take care of yourself, if you don't take time to rest, recover and, I suppose, acknowledge that you also may need help and support, you're not going to be as effective for the people that are relying on you. So that was added: to help to enhance the quality of life of myself, my family and the community.

[00:21:37] There was another thing missing. Obviously the world is pretty mad at the moment with everything that's going on, and you can get pretty fixated with it and worrisome about climate change and political instability, etc. But there's an old adage that says that if you get through today, you're more than likely to get through tomorrow. So that allowed Jen to reduce the sphere of worry that she had to contend with. Now her purpose statement reads: to enhance the quality of life of myself, my family and the community, navigating the challenges of today with positivity and resilience. Which I think is a very nice sentiment.

Recap and homework

[00:22:23] To recap on the purpose of today, we were talking about finding or creating that purpose, and it does have benefits. I know you're busy, you're in the jungle with your machete trying to get through your daily work, but this flag on the hill will help your company, your team and yourself refocus in terms of what's important.

[00:22:45] So maybe the homework that you have to do: next week when you're back in your company, try and see if you can unearth that PDF or that PowerPoint or that video where they introduce the purpose of your company. Hopefully there is one. Or do an exercise with your team to say, can we figure out a purpose for our team? And how about yourself as an individual?

[00:23:09] It's interesting, Jen told me after we spoke that she has now written her purpose on a small piece of cardboard that's the size of a credit card and has it in her wallet, and every now and then she pulls it out to revise her purpose. She said that last Saturday her entire family were in the lounge and they were all stuck on their phones, and she said, quality of life. Phones down, get in the car, let's drive to the beach, which is only 10 kilometers away. And a nice afternoon together making memories.

[00:23:43] So look, connect with me on LinkedIn please, and if you want to ping me with your personal statement, I'm no expert in it, but if it's a way just to get it out into the world I'll be happy to have a look at it. Or let me know if you found that purpose statement for your company or indeed for your team. Thank you.

Q&A

[00:24:08] Host: Stay here, stay here. Thank you very much, Frank. Great storytelling, thank you for that. Okay, we have some questions for you. The first one: what is the difference between purpose, vision, mission, strategy and goal?

[00:24:25] Frank: Am I miked? Okay, great. So there is a difference. Purpose is why you exist as a company. Vision is the long-term vision of where you want to get to with that company. Mission is the short-term things you want to achieve to get you to the vision, and values are the way in which you go about doing it. So there is a difference, but again it gets confusing, and there's sometimes when you look at these, they're very nuanced, which I think then is the importance of just having an ambition statement to summarize it.

[00:25:01] Host: Great, thank you. Okay, next one. For many ground workers it's hard to identify with a company's big mission statements. We can't all bring men on the moon. Can there be a small purpose?

[00:25:15] Frank: I think so. You can interpret the overarching purpose or mission statement and apply it to the little realm that you can control. So at Smartbox our purpose is to inspire people to experience life. We sell gift experiences. It's not an advert, great company, great products. You can, we'll say, drive a Ferrari or stay in a really nice, unique hotel, and we've interpreted "to inspire" in many ways. So in our beneficiary experience, this is when you get the gift, you go in, you log in, a lot of the reworking we've done of that is to inspire people about the options that they could avail of. So we've designed in a very map-centric focus with a great highlighting panel on the side where you can see all the benefits of what you could experience. So it does, you can really bring it down to what you can control.

[00:26:15] Host: Great, thank you. Okay, next question from Laura. How do you go about defining your personal purpose? Is there a process to go about it, guiding questions, elements that must be included?

[00:26:26] Frank: Yeah, so a bit like, I suppose, we're all ingrained with design thinking, I guess, and as the previous speaker would have said, there's a process to designing anything. There's the discovery process, then there's the design process and the testing process. The discovery process would be going out and finding examples of what's out there, and then sitting down and doing a workshop with yourself as a stakeholder, saying, well, what are the things that are important to me? What are the things that, if I wasn't able to access them, I wouldn't feel good about the way in which I persist in the world? So I think it's about unearthing your own requirements and then translating that into a statement. And again there's lots of nuance in the statement, so it can cover a multitude.

[00:27:21] Host: Great. Frank, final question. So you're in a startup environment. Who should set the purpose of a company?

[00:27:29] Frank: I think the person who notices that it's not there, and that could be anybody. I mean, you've seen now that there are huge benefits to purpose. If your organization isn't thinking about it, say, well guys, I was just thinking, maybe can we have a look at a purpose statement? Maybe I can do some kind of groundwork. I'll do a workshop from the grassroots and see what people think represents the purpose of the organization, and hopefully influence it as it gets higher. But who should do it? Senior management should do it, but yeah, it depends.

[00:28:05] Host: You've got more questions. I've been given time, Rory has allowed me, or us, a few more minutes. Let's go to the top. How to translate the company's purpose to our day-to-day work? So how do you move that into practice?

[00:28:17] Frank: Yeah, I think again it's looking at the statement. You might feel different ways about it, but it is to interpret the nuance within it. So Smartbox: to inspire people to experience life. We've interpreted "inspire" in a certain number of ways for the beneficiary and also for the buyer. We have two audiences, people who buy gifts and people who receive them. Sometimes they overlap. But we've also interpreted what "inspire" might mean for the buyer, from a UX point of view. So what features might inspire somebody to understand what we offer and to be inspired, and nudge them with their procrastination to go on and buy? So things like, we have a new multi-banner coming on the homepage that shows the breadth of our experiences. Before it was just one image. And all of this has been derived through user testing and a good discovery process.

[00:29:13] Host: Okay, this question. Why did NASA succeed with their large mission and poor old Dublin Bus company didn't?

[00:29:21] Frank: I think it's about cascading and bringing people on board. When you think about the people you need to bring on board, it's not just senior management teams, etc. It's also the partners you work with. For example, Dublin Bus works with unions. They're very, very powerful, very influential. So how do you get them on board with the idea that every journey matters, and fix those situations whereby people are encouraged, because it's not my job, to not fix the wing mirror on the bus? Whereas NASA has cascaded it really, really well.

[00:29:58] Host: Great, thank you very much. Awesome presentation. Thank you, Frank.

[00:30:01] Frank: Thank you.