The ‘why’, the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of establishing purpose – insights from Business in the Community’s latest Purpose Roundtable

What becomes quickly apparent when bringing together leaders on the subject of purpose is the differing opinions and approaches. It is a subject that stimulates passionate debate and challenge. What else in business can connect both hearts and minds so powerfully? And it is for this reason that it should be at the core of business.  As they say, many hands make light work and we weren’t short of insights on the day, so here are the main takeaways from what was a successful roundtable hosted by Unilever.

Why purpose?

A lot of businesses these days talk about purpose. But why? At Unilever we believe purpose is good for business and good for society and that you cannot have a healthy business in an unhealthy society. We put purpose at the heart of our brand strategy to serve the consumer better and leave the world in a better place then we found it.

So, where to start?

There are many routes to defining your purpose: whether it’s by modernising historic values or setting a completely new direction for the business. So where do you start? There’s no right answer, but what’s important is striking the right balance between influences. Purpose needs to be defined internally both bottom up and top down, with input from both external and internal stakeholders.

Building from within

People working in the company can be a huge source of insight in shaping purpose, but without the buy-in of senior leaders you lose the voice at the decision-making level. By not engaging employees on the journey, the driving force of the business will lack the passion to take any ambition forward. Imagine the power of an idea being advocated not only by its leaders, but also the voices of an entire employee base.  

External influences

Key stakeholders such as consumers or investors can be a huge influence. As one company shared, when facing huge losses, they used this as a prime opportunity to test what their customers would miss if the business ceased to exist. The response was overwhelming and surprising. It wasn’t their products or services that would be missed, but rather the essence of the company – what they stand for. The company was able to harness this to shape their future direction which was a turning point for the business.

Taking an organic approach means a direct connection to the core of a business, creating authenticity. Support in seeking out these ideas and opinions is helpful, but the shaping and embedding must come from the business itself.

Approaches to embedding purpose

Deliverable actions

Interpreting purpose to deliverable actions in the business is a challenge felt by many. This is often the most difficult part of the process but can offer the biggest reward.

By creating opportunities for all to drive the purpose, a sense of accountability and inclusion is built. For this to happen the purpose needs to be understood in the same way across all audiences, whether employee, customer or consumer. Leaving this open to interpretation can cause confusion and misunderstanding, resulting in unintended consequences.

As one business explained, this lack of clarity was leading individuals to make skewed decisions, stifling its abilities to do things differently, which in turn was affecting the longevity of the business. This led to a review of how they communicated the delivery of their purpose.

Recognition and reward

The consistency of the narrative needs to be felt in the everyday. It is by embedding through values and behaviours which instils this narrative. A sustainability team can add huge value to this process, but as the enabler not as the driver. The agenda mustn’t be embedded in just one function, it needs to be mainstreamed across the business.

Acknowledgement is vital when encouraging performance against purpose, yet measurement is a huge challenge. However, when you set targets aligned to the ambition, it makes things easier; we did this at Unilever through the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. Whether recognition is done through formal rewards such as remuneration or as part of performance management is still up for debate.

Getting this process right takes time – slow and deliberate as described by one leader. It is complex, and challenging, but the rewards can be significant. What is important is that it is not done in silos, and that you bring as many along on the journey with you as possible.

Many thanks to our attendees from Arm, Business in the Community, Deloitte, EMCOR, Fujitsu, GlaxoSmithKline, Guardian News & Media, Lego, J Sainsbury’s, Linklaters, Nestlé, Penguin Random House UK, Royal Bank of Scotland Unilever and WPP.