Most of What You Know About Business Purpose Is Wrong

Just because your business makes a positive impact somewhere along the line doesn't mean it's purpose-driven

Your company’s purpose is the valuable reason it exists. Purpose-driven businesses focus on that purpose and align everything else around it — including how and why they make money.

Unfortunately, purpose has become a victim of the jargon machine. The "purpose" label is slapped onto everything that vaguely touches positive impact, likely to seem trendy or to be keyword-friendly.

In fact, I recently read several studies published by different agencies on “purpose” only to discover that they were looking at something different. And these studies aren’t alone — I’m regularly making notes in the margins of articles on topics like leadership, HR and innovation that make a case for “purpose” but are in fact making a case for things like diversity or sustainability.

It’s not that things like diversity and sustainability aren’t important or even relevant to purpose-driven businesses, but that doesn’t mean the business has a focused purpose or that it’s running in a purpose-driven way.

Four impost…