In previous lectures, I've talked about how you cultivate your sense of purpose. And I talked about your impact strategy, how you test your assumptions and how you find the win, win. In this lecture, I'd like to turn our attention to the organization where you work and lead. And talk about how you bring that sense of purpose that you have, as a leader, how you bring it home to your organization. And my overarching message is really this, you need to bring your purpose inside the company, you need to walk the talk. You need to align what you and your organization say about your purpose and what you actually do, that's how you behave. What we're looking for is an alignment between what you say and what you do. Do you walk the talk? Do you practice what you preach? So how do you do that? I think that as a leader and I should be clear that you may be a leader at the very upper echelons of the organization or in the middle or even a leader on the front lines, lower in the organization. But how do you bring purpose home to your organization? As a leader at whatever level of your organization, you can do that in three ways. One is your own personal behavior, how you treat others, how you lead. The second is your culture, how do you contribute to the culture, how you build the culture. That's partly about vision, but it's more than that. And the third way is how you create and ensure accountability. How you make sure that you actually follow through on what you say your purpose is. So let's start with personal behavior, practicing what you preach. Why is that so important? Well, research tells us and our own personal experience tells us that we trust and respect people who practice what they preach. We don't really like or respect people who say one thing and do another or people who tell us to behave in one way and then they behave in other ways. So leaders who practice what they preach. Who show what researchers call behavioral integrity. Those leaders have followers who are loyal, who are committed, who are energized, and who are motivated. So that's really why your personal behavior is so important. What about culture? Well, a purpose driven culture, a culture, where policies, practices, norms really reflect the larger organizational purpose. That kind of culture is great for recruiting employees, retaining employees. It's great for employee motivation and engagement. It spurs creativity. That larger culture that is consistent with your purpose, really is a motivating force and a connecting force for the organization as a whole. And what about accountability? We talked about some of the ways in which it's difficult to pursue purpose and profit at the same time. So, when you have accountability mechanisms in place, people, structures and metrics that help us follow through on our commitments, that's really helpful. It's helpful to have those people, those structures, those metrics that make sure that we don't let ourselves or our companies off the hook. So, let's start with leader behavior, how you behave as an individual. And how this is an important element of bringing purpose back home to your organization. Well, what exactly are you supposed to do? As a purpose driven leader you're asking employees in the organization to meet a higher standard. And they're going to ask you to meet that higher standard. You'll be expected to meet that standard. And for one way you do that, is simply how you respond to others. Are you a good listener? Do you show respect? Are you open to feedback? I have to tell you that I have seen remarkable skill from the purpose driven leaders I've seen in their openness to feedback. Their responses to feedback and to criticism from their organizations is, thank you, thank you for holding me to a higher standard. Man, I blew that. I'm so glad you brought it up. So, personal behavior, it's about listening, it's about respect, it's about openness to feedback. Another element that can be very important is being open and vulnerable. So it's interesting, the Edelman Trust Research that's been done on, where do we trust business? Do we trust government? Do we trust CEO's? One of the things that comes out in that research is, people trust leaders who are more open and vulnerable. So sharing your personal story, being vulnerable, being open about your values and experiences. All of this is part of how you as an individual bring purpose home and communicate this within your organization. Let's talk now about building a culture. How do you build a culture that is consistent with your larger mission, with your sense of purpose? One way you build that culture is through the vision that you communicate. How do you share your purpose with others in the organization? One of the things we know and we talked about this when we talked about purpose is, it's great when the purpose is clear, when it's succinct, when it's distinctive, and also when it's actually visual. When people can see that vision. When it paints a picture for people. So my colleague Drew Carton on the faculty here at Wharton, has done great work on the power of vision. And actually shows that, when it's more visual, when we can see the people, the kids, the world, the scene, we can see it in our mind's eyes, that's more motivating. Another aspect of communicating vision that can be very helpful is, establishing contact with the people who actually benefit from your services and your products. So if we can see our products making a difference in poor communities,for example. Understand how we're transforming lives and you can give employees the experience that actually seeing the people they're benefiting, that makes a real difference. My colleague Adam Grant has done great research on this. So, how do you build a culture? One is by doing a great job of communicating the purpose and the vision. A second strategy is really a whole bundle of efforts to create participative management practices. Really mechanisms that allow employees to give input, to suggest ideas, to make decisions, to be personally accountable. And we can do this formally or informally, but the key point is you really want to create a climate and a culture where employees are giving their all and giving their ideas and they feel respected and empowered to provide input. And a third element of a really successful culture is psychological safety. What we mean by psychological safety is it feels safe psychologically. It feels safe to take an interpersonal risk in this environment. It feels safe in this group, or in this organization, to speak up and to discuss difficult topics. And we know that when groups and organizations feel psychologically safe to people, people learn more. They engage more, they trust and they help one another more. So those are all ways to build a culture that is consistent with your larger sense of purpose. And what about building accountability? How do you build accountability mechanisms? These mechanisms that make sure that we actually follow through on our commitments because that's really what accountability means. We're accountable when we follow through on our commitments. So how do you do that? What I've seen in some of the best purpose driven companies is really four ways of ensuring accountability. So the first way is through metrics and transparency, measures and certifications. And I think, for example, of companies that get certified as B corporations. So, B corporations are certified by a non-profit organization, they're certified by a non-profit organization called B-Lab. And they're certified as having met rigorous standards of social and environmental performance. You basically go through a intense survey, follow up to say, what does our company do in these different dimensions? What is our company doing to protect the environment? To treat workers really well, to provide customers with real value, to strengthen communities, to show strong governments. Over 2,000 companies across the world in 50 countries have been B certified. It's quite a movement. It's very interesting. Many of the companies that we've talked about in at different points in these lectures, are B certified. Etsy, for example, is B certified, so is Unilever. So one way to insure accountability is through metrics that say, are we living up to our standards? These are our standards, how are we measuring up? Another way is through legal structures. I won't talk about them in great detail. But in the United States, at least, we're seeing changes in legal structures. Companies can now, for example, get incorporated as benefit corporations. So it's built into the company's by-laws, that there is both a profit seeking goal and a purpose goal. And when companies are incorporated legally as benefit corporations, they get various benefits. One benefit is if they sell the company, they're legally protected to balance profit and purpose. Even when they are selling the company, they don't necessarily have to sell to the highest bidder. If they think a different bidder, a different future owner is going to protect the purpose of the company, that's a reasonable thing to take into consideration. So legal structures are second way to build accountability. A third way is with your Board of directors. So when the Board of directors is strongly committed to your profit and your purpose, and they're holding you accountable. That's really great for the company, because they're on board, and they're not pushing you to maximize profits, even if that doesn't maximize purpose. Or pushing you to maximize purpose, even if that's hurting your profits. They're really on board with your dual mission. And finally, a fourth accountability mechanism is really your customers, and what you say to them through your marketing. Your customers are really on the watch for authenticity and inauthenticity. If your customers say, this is really a purpose driven company. I see the larger purpose. This company is following through in a meaningful way, they're on board. They support your brand. If they think this is just window dressing, they're really skeptical. They see you as a hypocrite and you lose your customer's loyalty. So lots of ways to bring your larger sense of purpose home, make it stick, build it into the company. Through your personal behavior, through your culture, and through the accountability mechanisms you create in your organization. So I invite you to watch three different videos, three different great leaders. Who are, I think do a magnificent job bringing home the sense of purpose to this, their organizations and they'll talk to you about how they have done that. I also encourage you to take a look at these videos of great purpose driven leaders and talking about how they've brought their sense of purpose home to their organization. I interviewed Chad Dickerson, the CEO of Etsy at the Net Impact Conference. And you'll hear him talking about how he brings that sense of purpose into his company. You'll hear, I think some really interesting examples of his personal vulnerability and his personal behavior, also the culture of the company. I also want to encourage you to check out the video with Kat Taylor. I was lucky enough to interview her as well. Kat is the CEO and cofounder of Beneficial State Bank. She'll talk too, about how they lead internally to align their company's culture and practices with the business purpose. And finally there's an interview I did with Jostein Solhiem who is the CEO of Ben and Jerry's, talking particularly in this case about their board of directors. So, great examples I think of bringing purpose home to your organization.
