Man, first of all, is the being who hurls himself
towards a future and who is conscious of imagining himself as being in the
future – Jean-Paul
Sartre
The Veracity of Purpose
For both organisations and individuals, a clear (higher) purpose that
is bigger than ourselves can provide us with direction, stability, motivation,
meaning and a sense of belonging. It informs our behaviour. Builds our reputation. Any organisation or individual truly
executing its or their purpose authentically, coherently and passionately are
alive and well.
Without purpose and meaning we suffer the disease of ennui, are jaded,
lacklustre, aimless, feel unsatisfied. “The human brain cannot sustain purposeless living.
It is not designed for that. Its systems are designed for purposive action.
When that is blocked, its systems deteriorate, and the emotional feedback from
idling these systems signals extreme discomfort and motivates the search for
renewed purpose, renewed meaning”.(1)
So finding and following our purpose is work of the utmost importance.
“When
you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your
thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your
consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great
and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and
you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself
to be”.(2)
Purpose encompasses being, then
the doing that results, with any
achievement or outcome of lesser concern. “To the extent that we are
attached to the results of our work, we rise and fall with our success and
failures, which is a path to burnout. Failures are inevitable, and successes
are not the deepest purpose of our work. This requires a deepening of faith in
the intrinsic value of our work-
beyond the concrete results. To the extent that our actions are rooted
in pure intention, they have a reverberation far beyond the concrete results of
the actions themselves. As Gandhi
emphasized, "The victory is in the doing", not
the outcome”. (3) Purpose evokes a passion about why we
exist.
Employees should be able to
identify with and support the organisation’s purpose although their own
individual purpose may be different, and this is sufficient ‘alignment’.
Finding our higher purpose
has been the subject of previous papers:
INDIVIDUAL: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-am-i-here-aligning-individual-employees-purpose-graham-williams
This document now explores
how we might, at the organisation level, follow
a decided purpose.
Living your Purpose
using the ‘Purpose Sphere’ and its Dimensions
Steering the organisation to deciding and fulfilling its newly stated
purpose requires considerable effort, especially in the kick-off phase, in
order to build and maintain momentum through to completion.
This is not simply
about fixing a few things but about embracing new possibilities, entering a new
way of relating to the community being served, becoming a different entity,
with a different culture. Naturally a
new way of leading is required. A
number of dimensions need to be leveraged in the interests of this
transformation. Hence what I term the ‘purpose-sphere’:
Some background to explain this visual conceptually:
- Somatics attempts to go beyond cognitive knowledge to embody, and generate. Centreing from thinking to feeling happens along four dimensions.
LENGTH - from spiritual to pragmatic (Be
and Do),
WIDTH -
being ‘wide’ open and beyond self into community (relational
space),
DEPTH is the space between what’s behind
and what’s in front (or the depth of one’s inner
landscape).
The 4th dimension then
becomes a centred purpose.
- The Whirling Dervish dancer is connecting heaven and earth, embracing all, symbolising the way the universe and all within rotate and connect
When particles of dust
Are touched by the sun
They spread their arms and start whirling
To a music no one can hear
Are touched by the sun
They spread their arms and start whirling
To a music no one can hear
The
sun, moon, and stars
Keep turning around the sky:
We’re in the middle
Turning around the centre
Keep turning around the sky:
We’re in the middle
Turning around the centre
What should I do
If love seizes me
Start dancing of course! (Rumi)
If love seizes me
Start dancing of course! (Rumi)
St Patrick (born around AD 414):
Christ with me
Christ
before me
Christ
behind me
Christ
in me
Christ
beneath me
Christ
above me
Christ
on my right
Christ
on my left
Ephesians 3:18: “And may you have the power to understand, as
all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is”
The ‘purpose sphere’ visual
may be viewed as a journey to integration. Interestingly, the Christian cross
is a symbol of becoming whole, attaining equilibrium. It has both dark and
light connotations. It is “a double see saw with the two axis crossing
at the centre. It provides the framework for balancing right and left and also
the high and the low” - Robert Johnson
- WIDTH in the sense of an open-ness to the needs of the community. Think in terms of willing, wide open arms, to serve and give in order to to make our purpose explicit.
And also as a balancing factor, that is,
a balance between ‘left brain’/’right brain’ thinking,
non-duality (‘And’ rather than
‘Either/Or), masculine and feminine, positive and ‘negative’
opportunities. A good metaphor is that of steering a boat –
with only one oar one goes
around in circles. Utilising both oars
ensures sound guidance towards the chosen direction.
Integrated (systemic) thinking when making a decision, solving a
problem, formulating
a plan
- taking account of the impact of
and on the interconnected capitals available to business
(human, social, manufactured, social, intellectual, natural)(4)
to which we could add
‘spiritual’,
is an important balancing mechanism. The integrated thinking model goes hand in
hand with
stewardship: an eco-centric approach to the environment, ushering in a
circular
economy
and enabling sustainable, cohesive communities and society.
- DEPTH is being focused on and moving towards bringing purpose to fruition - fully engaged, assuming a presence in the community, having a sense of wider inter-connectivity, and a clear scenario of your future, being ‘in the flow’. Being pushed by wonder, awe, curiosity, compassion …. - but also being held back or restrained / constrained by past experiences, limiting beliefs, attachments, false logic, lack of capacity, a non-growth mind-set, self-deception .…
We are often unaware of the unconscious
forces pushing, pulling or constraining us, our
built in, hidden impulses and
drivers. An illustration:
Dr
Gabor Maté interviewed by Tami Simon of Sounds True on Tues Mar 21, 2017 told
of
being
in Budapest a day after the WWII German occupation, when he was 2 months old,
his
mother called their paediatrician: "Would you please come see my
son? Because he's
crying all
the time". And the paediatrician says, "Of course I will come, but I
should tell you
all my Jewish
babies are crying".
And so that anecdote told by my mother
speaks to the very essence of childhood experience,
which is to say that what happens to the
parents happens to the child.
Sometimes we have to push and push until
purpose and vision pulls! Key to this is being
aware of what is propelling or preventing our forward momentum, through
disciplined
external and internal sensing, and building or leveraging what is needed.
- LENGTH is about having a raised consciousness and being practical; about being part of, and inspired by, a higher calling, belonging, having faith and a transcendental view, being values- based, operating from the inside out while at the same time being alert, grounded, practical, mindful, effective at decision-making and problem solving, and at bringing about lasting change through sound, courageous leadership. Integrated thinking is applied. There are reflective, relational and resilience aspects to this dimension.
The ‘Length’ dimension can be viewed as a contemplatives-in-action
dimension. Spirituality
promotes and fosters:
o an internal focus and an outward
execution
o a meaningful, transcending, pervasive
world view that calls forth a higher purpose, and rises above religion, culture
and ethnicity
o a deep appreciation of our
interconnectedness as a context of existence
o an other-orientation. The desire to
serve others, society and the environment. An awakening from self- consciousness to a wider, deeper
consciousness
o the development of positive principles
and character virtues, a mature ethics and morality in action (purity of heart)
along with a recognition that love is the highest virtue, but reachable
Spirituality is about the whole person. When we’re
spiritual we think, feel and act differently
and congruently. (I am acutely aware that
there is a mystical, mysterious, inexplicable inner
–
experience dimension
to spirituality which defies easy explanation and definition).
A Moving Force-Field and Container
Think of the ‘purpose – sphere’ as a powerful force
field, designed for you to succeed at implementing your purpose statement. The sphere is also a container: “Ours is not the task of fixing the
entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world
that is within our reach” - Clarissa
Pinkola Estes
We are reflective, relational and resilient beings. (“At the heart of resilience is a belief in oneself - yet also a
belief in something larger than oneself” – Hara Estroff Marano, Editor at Large,
Psychology Today)
Reflecting periodically as a group on the transformation journey to is
a bonding, growth experience. A creative pause in our hectic daily activities -
that yields clear ways forward to gain and to keep momentum.
Has the journey
improved our stability, ‘anti-fragility’ and who we intend to be as we’ve moved
into living our clear purpose and direction?
Have we sufficiently leveraged
the length, width and depth dynamics of the ‘purpose sphere’ to this end?
These two questions raise the issues of feedback and measurement, and
here I love the simple eloquence of what drives Menlo Innovations, a highly successful
IT services company based in Michigan.
Their CEO and Chief Storyteller, Richard Sheridan, is focused on JOY
as a value, a purpose and a description of their culture. When I asked Richard how he
measured joy, his response was that he produces statistics, metrics and
improvement-outcomes for the cynical and disbelieving, but essentially his real
measure (the one that counts!) is the extent to which Menlo’s successes and
advocacy travel as anecdotes by word of mouth.(5)
When contemplating progress
towards a higher purpose, compose story of a future possibility, how things
will look when you overcome existing blocks, challenges or traumas. Allow
yourselves to enter Neil Gaiman’s world of “not yet” (6), asking and then answering one or more of
these three questions:
“What if … ?
If only …
If this goes on …”
© Graham Williams 2017
References
1. Cooper, Mick Presentation: Tree of Desires citing Klinger
The search for meaning in evolutionary
goal - theory perspective and its clinical implications. In P. T. P. Wong
(Ed.), The human quest for meaning:
Theories, research, and applications (2nd Ed) New York: Routledge 2013
2. Rutte,
Martin (2006) The Work of Humanity: project
heaven on earth citing Patanjali (in Seeking
the Sacred: leading a spiritual life in a secular world. (ed
Mary Joseph) ECW Press, Toronto, Canada
3. Will Keepin’s Principles of Spiritual Leadership
4. The international Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) (2013) The
International ‘IR’ Framework, December 2013
5. Sheridan, Richard Joy, Inc.:
how we built a workplace people love Portfolio/ Penguin 2013
6. Gaiman, Neil
The View From the Cheap Seats:
selected Nonfiction Headline 2016
