Prioritise Purpose over Profit : I’m not sure I agree that companies are doing this right now; nor will they in the next five years. You can see that Twitter, Google, Meta are all shedding workforce to control costs and become more efficient and effective. I think this trend is going to grow. The harsher economic outlook leads me to believe this. I think the author is looking back over the last 5 years but perhaps not looking forward for the next 10
I think it really depends on business and its CEO. I faced many business owners who genuinely asked me "why do I need to provide better quality to my customers, focus on employees happiness, when my goal is to get 8-9 fig asap. People already buy, so I need the opposite to keep adapting them to lower quality and keep raising the price and squeeze out maximum from my employees. You can teach us mindset when you make 9fig yourself". A few others were really focusing on purpose and changing people's life. So, all depends :)
Twitter, Google and Meta were also playing a game of "Let's recruit all the talent we can so no one else can have it", which was giving them an unfair advantage and could only be kept up while they were printing money.
Now a lot of talented people are released into the real productive market, so I expect a lot of cool new products from the more entrepreneurial ones and a lot of smaller startups being able to afford top talent.
Also some talented people didn't want to work for these companies ( I know a few of them) due to their company culture. So, hopefully, we will evolve in building useful and cool products rather than just chase money
Chapter 1. Strategic Direction: Prioritize Purpose over Profit
My key takeaway from this is that in the digital age, healthy organizational practices have become vital for businesses to survive and adapt to change.
This is especially relevant given the growing importance of purpose for millennials in the workforce, who expect companies to have a meaningful impact on society and the environment.
Also liked how the author back his argument both with numbers and a good case study of a major organization
- The author cites a Harvard Business School study which found that a clear sense of purpose can increase return on assets (ROA) by 3.89% per year and that purpose-driven companies have 400% more returns on the stock market than the Standard and Poor 500.
- Unilever is an example of a company that successfully implemented a purpose-led agenda under the leadership of Paul Polman. Polman put in place actions to ensure that the values, purpose, and strategy were embedded in the culture and operations of the company by creating personal purpose for each leadership layer that was tied to Unilever’s organizational purpose, thereby clearly laying out performance expectations and accountabilities. More than 500 hundred managers were a the core of this, across multiple organization layers.
Overall, the chapter highlights the importance of organizational health and purpose for businesses in today's digital age and the benefits that it can bring.
Compared to the typical agile book, the language is much more business friendly and the examples actionable top down as opposed to the usual bottom up approach. Reading this helps me understand initiatives going on at one of my own clients, which now I see are inspired in purpose driven organisations, and which because of the disconnect between the agility implementers and top leadership hadn't been obvious to me.
It is always fascinating to me to share takeaways because someone's else takeaways point me on ideas I totally missed. I needed to get back for a Harvard study because I didn't remember reading about it at all!
What convinced me to read this book in the first place were a few keywords in the index:
1. "Strategic Direction: Prioritize Purpose over Profit" - the right thing to do, but not always what you'd see in a business book
3. “Leadership: Be Agile and Human-Centric in the Age of Intelligent Machines” - would love to see some insights on agility and AI
6. "Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity: Adopt a Bias for Radical Transparency and Belonging” - I totally agree with talking about Radical transparency over psychological safety.
Also finding the world "Health" four times.
Starting to read now, looking forward to a nice shared experience / debate, Ian and fellow bookies!
Prioritise Purpose over Profit : I’m not sure I agree that companies are doing this right now; nor will they in the next five years. You can see that Twitter, Google, Meta are all shedding workforce to control costs and become more efficient and effective. I think this trend is going to grow. The harsher economic outlook leads me to believe this. I think the author is looking back over the last 5 years but perhaps not looking forward for the next 10
As the devil's advocate I am, now they are prioritising survival over purpose :p
I think it really depends on business and its CEO. I faced many business owners who genuinely asked me "why do I need to provide better quality to my customers, focus on employees happiness, when my goal is to get 8-9 fig asap. People already buy, so I need the opposite to keep adapting them to lower quality and keep raising the price and squeeze out maximum from my employees. You can teach us mindset when you make 9fig yourself". A few others were really focusing on purpose and changing people's life. So, all depends :)
Twitter, Google and Meta were also playing a game of "Let's recruit all the talent we can so no one else can have it", which was giving them an unfair advantage and could only be kept up while they were printing money.
Now a lot of talented people are released into the real productive market, so I expect a lot of cool new products from the more entrepreneurial ones and a lot of smaller startups being able to afford top talent.
Also some talented people didn't want to work for these companies ( I know a few of them) due to their company culture. So, hopefully, we will evolve in building useful and cool products rather than just chase money
Chapter 1. Strategic Direction: Prioritize Purpose over Profit
My takeaways:
I like that the author speaks a lot about AI integration to help with three common challenges:
fuzzy priorities;
fuzzy accountability;
culture clash
Also like the example of Unilever case and how to use Scenario Modeling.
The highlighted questions:
1. How can I use my company to make the world better?
2. How can I enlist my purpose and those of my teammates to achieve growth and alleviate pressing societal and ecological problems?
Brilliant !!
Chapter 1. Strategic Direction: Prioritize Purpose over Profit
My key takeaway from this is that in the digital age, healthy organizational practices have become vital for businesses to survive and adapt to change.
This is especially relevant given the growing importance of purpose for millennials in the workforce, who expect companies to have a meaningful impact on society and the environment.
Also liked how the author back his argument both with numbers and a good case study of a major organization
- The author cites a Harvard Business School study which found that a clear sense of purpose can increase return on assets (ROA) by 3.89% per year and that purpose-driven companies have 400% more returns on the stock market than the Standard and Poor 500.
- Unilever is an example of a company that successfully implemented a purpose-led agenda under the leadership of Paul Polman. Polman put in place actions to ensure that the values, purpose, and strategy were embedded in the culture and operations of the company by creating personal purpose for each leadership layer that was tied to Unilever’s organizational purpose, thereby clearly laying out performance expectations and accountabilities. More than 500 hundred managers were a the core of this, across multiple organization layers.
Overall, the chapter highlights the importance of organizational health and purpose for businesses in today's digital age and the benefits that it can bring.
Compared to the typical agile book, the language is much more business friendly and the examples actionable top down as opposed to the usual bottom up approach. Reading this helps me understand initiatives going on at one of my own clients, which now I see are inspired in purpose driven organisations, and which because of the disconnect between the agility implementers and top leadership hadn't been obvious to me.
It is always fascinating to me to share takeaways because someone's else takeaways point me on ideas I totally missed. I needed to get back for a Harvard study because I didn't remember reading about it at all!
Just starting with Ch1 now
What convinced me to read this book in the first place were a few keywords in the index:
1. "Strategic Direction: Prioritize Purpose over Profit" - the right thing to do, but not always what you'd see in a business book
3. “Leadership: Be Agile and Human-Centric in the Age of Intelligent Machines” - would love to see some insights on agility and AI
6. "Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity: Adopt a Bias for Radical Transparency and Belonging” - I totally agree with talking about Radical transparency over psychological safety.
Also finding the world "Health" four times.
Starting to read now, looking forward to a nice shared experience / debate, Ian and fellow bookies!