Many people believe that a company’s sole, or at least most important, purpose is to make money. While it is true that profit is vital for an organisation’s survival, it is absolutely wrong that money should be the core purpose.
Truthfully, the core purpose of any business is to provide unique value to its customers through its products, services, and brand. This value cannot exist without company-wide understanding of the core purpose and mission. Understanding begets quick decisions and actions that produce an agile and innovative organisation. This is NOT the effect of mindless memorization of rules and duties, but of a true understanding and enthusiastic adoption of the business’s purpose by all employees.Every team member should know that the company they are with is not out to make a profit, but to contribute to the world and that each one of them has their own role to accomplish that.
The job of management and company leaders is not to manage but to communicate, and each manager needs to be able to reinforce the organisation’s core values and lead by example to ensure understanding and encourage desired behaviours. The best leaders ensure their employees are clearly informed on who their market is, what they are best at and what is the focus of their differentiation.
It is the advantage of small businesses and startups to have constant communication between the “board” and the “little guy.” This is how they are able to dominate marketplaces so quickly, and adapt to changes effortlessly. So how then do the larger companies instill this sens of “oneness” through their vast organisations? The starting point is to develop strong and clear Non-Negotiable Principles, and then to get those principles in the hands of managers who can translate them to employees on a constant basis.
In our article, Leading by Objectives – Two Leadership Lessons, InnoFuture discussed the road to NNPs and leading by example. HP is just one large corporation who has lost their ability to connect all employees to one gool, and is therefore losing their position in the marketplace. Be sure this doesn’t happen to you!