CURRENT ISSUE
| Cover Story |
| Columns |
| The Leadership Cookbook: On Purpose |
| Executive Advice | |
| By Rudy M. Miick | |
| Thursday, 24 January 2008 | |
 Figure 1: When passion drives your business, a clear sense of purpose unfolds. From purpose comes a whole spiral of business performance that inspires and motivates. Passion and purpose build sales, retention and high profitability. Obama won Iowa. With success there, he was expected to be the democratic winner in New Hampshire. He wasn’t. But you would never know it from the talk he gave to his supporters aired on C-SPAN. Regardless where you place your presidential 2008 vote, if you listened, you heard Obama model an amazing example of the “Power of Purpose” in his post-election talk. This candidate offered no promises, offered no specifics to his audience. What he did offer was a simple, amazing sense of human purpose: “Historically, if the American people are told, ‘No, we can’t,’ our answer is simply, ‘Oh yes, we can.’” Obama went on to give examples: flying to the moon, civil rights and the vote for women. He pointed out that at the time each cause was named there were no solutions, no technology and no answers; there was only a sense of purpose and a vision to get there. While specific answers didn’t exist, the goal was clear: “We need to do this and the time is now.” In each case, the leader simply held to the potency that we are doing this with the energy of “Oh, yes, we can!” and the historical perspective of the American pioneer can-do spirit. A ‘Yes’ Man I sat watching his speech, wondering where he was going to go as a leader having lost his immediate race. My experience found him building energy in the audience, increasing belief simply from a sense of purpose that, in doing what’s right, a leader and population will figure out the right way to get there. Peace instead of war, a balanced budget and healthy economy, health care, education for any who wants one. He kept repeating: “Yes, we can.” In minutes, the audience was chanting with him, “Yes, we can!” This led me to thoughts of business leadership. As a kid, I recall watching TV coverage of Armstrong making the first steps on the moon. The newscaster interviewed a custodian at NASA. Although the Hispanic employee, donned a janitors’ uniform, had a clean-up cart behind her, when asked what she does at NASA, she replied, “I am putting a man on the moon!” Do you get it? Her task was being a janitor, but in her role, she supported putting a man on the moon. Clearly, she, like Obama – regardless of their position on the totem pole – was instilled with a sense of purpose. Passion and Purpose When was the last time, you inspired your team with a sense of purpose? What if operators told our teams our purpose, as restaurateurs, is to literally restore our guests? The literal definition of restaurateur is “restorer of soul.” If there was ever a time in the last 20 years we as a nation could use some restoration time, it’s now. We deliver more than mere products to our customers – we each have a deeper purpose in business. After 30 years of working with leaders, time, after time I’ve seen a sense of purpose as the root of any substantial shift in performance. When any business functions purposefully, sales and profits go up dramatically. The irony is, when the focus is on money as the primary driver, people leave for more money, or specifications change because of money. When passion is the driver, a clear sense of purpose unfolds. From purpose comes a whole spiral of business performance that inspires and motivates. Passion and purpose build sales, retention and high profitability. See how in Figure 1. Here’s a breakdown: A sense of passion supports clearly defined purpose. A sense of purpose provides the foundation to really ground and define values. When purpose and values combine, they form a foundation that keeps us on course on a path to potent and compelling vision. Take a look at this, because, these grounding points defined or not, are the operational root of your brand experience. Why not define your culture and your brand instead of getting there by accident or default? Matter of Purpose A company’s mission is, I believe, the compelling operational performance of purpose. And you can put together a “mission team” that’s on a voyage to Mission: Possible. Whether you’re a janitor or CEO of NASA, a server or sous chef, a factory worker or the plant manager, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that each role functions on purpose. When purpose is in place, “Yes I can” suddenly shows up in real dollars, in real smiles an in a real connection with people. Stepping Toward Purpose Nick’s Pizza & Pub based in Crystal Lake, Ill., exemplifies this model. With a $9.53 check average, the company churns out just below $4 million a year. Because the team works on purpose and the leaders lead purposefully, staff retention is 80 percent and there’s no such thing as a dead-end job. One way Nick’s embodies “Yes, we can” is in what it calls its “five-step greeting.” The five step works this way: If an employee comes within five steps of a guest, he or she must make eye contact, smile and greet the guest. Imagine walking to a restaurant and an employee is taking out the trash. Instead of avoiding eye contact, maybe embarrassed to be carrying trash, at Nick’s he’ll look you right in the eyes and with a smile, “Welcome to Nick’s! Have a great time tonight!” You’ve just experienced a brand ambassador who just happens to be carrying trash. As a company officer your mission, objectives and tasks may be different than those of your team. Mission No. 1 is to model the behavior you want to see. And, do that modeling on purpose. The good news is working with purpose is that simple. What is not easy is to keep from getting pulled away from purpose by pretending we have no impact, no voice, no choices. Yes, we do. Yes, we can. Rudy M. Miick, FCSI, president of Miick & Associates, can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 720-641-7565. |
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