Purpose seems to be all the rage lately. From Google’s Don’t Be Evil mantra to Howard Schultz’s push behind fair trade coffee and now his book For Love of Country, it seems like everyone wants to talk about purpose these days. But what does it really mean? And how do you help your team members understand its importance and feel the power of purpose at work?
Research shows that employees who have a strong sense of purpose are more engaged, productive and tend to stay with their companies longer. So why don’t more businesses spend time on developing it? Because creating an employee purpose map is hard work. It takes hours or days (or sometimes weeks) to get your team talking about their purpose. Here are a few proven methods for helping them see how their individual roles fit into an overall company purpose. The Case for Creating an Employee Purpose Map: Studies show that workers who know what they stand for tend to be happier, more engaged and produce better results than those without a clear idea of what they do. This makes intuitive sense — knowing why you go to work every day provides clarity and direction in both good times and bad. But many organizations fail to help their teams understand how they contribute individually towards a larger purpose; instead, managers focus solely on tasks.
An employee purpose map is a framework that employees can use to understand their role within an organization and how it aligns with its larger mission. An employee purpose map uses storytelling, images and other visuals (like videos) to show how each person’s daily work translates into overall company impact. An effective employee purpose map helps teams feel more connected and aligned, resulting in increased engagement, happiness and productivity.
What do you see as your organization’s purpose? (Source) What problems or challenges is your organization trying to solve? (Source) What would success look like? (Source) Why does your team exist? (Source) Why are you in business? (Source) Who is on your team and what makes them special, different, valuable and important enough for us to care about. Why should we celebrate their uniqueness?
Purpose maps are a powerful tool for engaging employees, helping them understand their role within your company. In essence, purpose maps help clarify an employee’s specific tasks and bigger picture responsibilities. They can be great for onboarding new hires, getting long-term employees up to speed on changes to their roles or even deepening the sense of purpose already inherent within your team.
The most powerful way to engage your team is by building a purposeful culture around every project, process and product. Helping people understand why they’re doing what they’re doing will give them an emotional connection with their work that goes beyond simple incentives or compensation.
Most companies still engage in annual performance reviews and rankings, despite evidence that they don’t work. If you want to create a company where your employees are empowered and motivated—where people who know how to get things done get things done—you need to ditch the annual review. It’s not just a broken system; it’s counterproductive. Here’s why, and what you can do instead. Focus on Strengths, Not Weaknesses: When you focus on fixing weaknesses at work, you’re putting all your energy into something that isn’t working well. And when you spend time trying to fix weaknesses, it creates a negative cycle—it takes more energy away from your strengths than ever before. Instead of working on weaknesses or deficiencies, build on strengths.
Check more about the Power of Purpose here.