Purpose & Strategy Execution
Purpose
Everything that’s ever been created was created with a purpose in mind: its raison d’être or “reason for existence”. Products, services, programs, teams, functional areas, committees (especially ad hoc), organizations, and even human beings – there’s a reason why they all exist.
A company’s mission statement is a proclamation of the organization’s purpose or reason for existence. Below are the mission statements of three Western Washington-based Fortune 500 companies:
- Microsoft Corporation: To help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.
- Amazon.com, Inc.: We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric company for four primary customer sets: consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content creators.
- Starbucks Corporation: To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.
If you’ve ever been a customer of any of the above companies, ask yourself if your customer experience validates the express purpose of that company? Are they doing what they state they’re in the market to do?
All the King’s Components
Assuming you’ve already developed a business strategy, to be effective in its execution, you need to align the right components to carry out the strategy: components that share a common purpose. When the component is an inanimate object – such as a manufacturing tool, software platform, or communication device – its purpose is clear. However, when a component is a human being, things become more complicated because each individual has a different intrinsic purpose or raison d’être.
In a previous article, “Why the Lakers Should Have Performed a SWOT Analysis,” I argued after the firing of Los Angeles Lakers head coach Mike Brown that Phil Jackson would have been a much better choice over Mike D’Antoni to take over coaching duties because Jackson’s strengths and opportunities better align with those of Lakers’ superstar and team leader Kobe Bryant. Oftentimes, an individual’s purpose in life is reflected in his or her strengths and opportunities.
When two (or more) individuals who share similar intrinsic purposes work with each other toward a common vision, they prove to be highly effective because they are focusing their natural energies in the same direction toward the realization of common goals and objectives. However, when you put together individuals on the same team with different intrinsic purposes, they may offset or negate each others’ effectiveness because their energies may be focused in different directions, toward different goals and objectives, and for different reasons, proving much less effective on net.
Bean, Go There!
For instance, there was a period of time when I worked in corporate accounting as an international accountant for a high-tech company and subsequently as the accounting manager of a local community bank. Although I understand now why I endured my time in those roles, I know that accounting is not my purpose in life. That is, I wasn’t created and put on this earth to be an accountant. I believe some people may be. I’m not one of them.
The routineness of work and the requirement to conform to a rigid standard practice were excruciatingly painful to me. I think I was able to do the job because I willed the numbers to come out like they should. I didn’t just “count beans”. I “forced the beans” where they needed to go, if you get the picture.
I’ve since discovered that I’m much better suited for project-based work in which there’s a clear beginning and end to the work and a rest period afterwards (I guess I just need that special time to bask in the afterglow of a job well done). I also need a balance of creative and analytical processes to keep my mind stimulated. Furthermore, I have a talent for synthesizing copious amounts of information at a high level.
Given these requirements, my talents and abilities contribute to my penchant for strategy consulting which requires high-level synthesis, the application of both creative and analytical processes, and includes project-based work. And with regard to quantitative activities, I have a much greater affinity for financial analysis and modeling than accounting.
One of the activities I really enjoy is creating quantitative models on MS Excel. I love creating what seems like an entire little world on the grid of the spreadsheet application with intricate relationships between independent and dependent variables and how, with an adjustment to a single input cell, you can change the whole landscape of the world altogether. Given my purpose, if you were to now put me on a team of accountants working toward, say, the month-end close, I could put up with the routineness for probably a few days but, after that, I would end up pulling out all my hair and eating much of it.
Focused Execution
The key to effective strategy execution is to compile the right components that share similar intrinsic purposes, imbue them with the same vision, and focus their energies to work toward the pursuit of common goals. Do this not just at the team level but expand it at a macro level to all parts of the organization to ensure that all functional areas work toward the organization’s purpose: its mission. Marry this process to a sound business strategy; clear communication of the organization’s differentiating position; and simple, self-perpetuating systems to carry out the strategy and you have the essential mechanisms for a highly effective organization.
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How I Can Help
For help in executing an existing business strategy or to develop a new business strategy, contact me to get started. And if you liked what you read, share it with someone in your social network by using the social media buttons below.