Chapter 3

The Importance of Purpose

Introduction

Now is a great time to discuss the ultimate reason to apply lean in your organization—something we refer to as True North (more commonly called purpose). Lean is the means by which we activate our commitment to continually improve, fulfilling our purpose as best we can, getting a little bit better at it every day. Surprisingly, purpose is rarely shared throughout all levels of a company. Common sense tells us that for the employees of an organization to perform at their best, they must understand the ultimate reason why the company exists. Knowing our purpose creates guideposts to direct both operational and strategic decision-making. While in many companies, management will post mission or vision statements on websites or plaster them on the walls of headquarters, seldom does it discuss these statements or use them to influence and direct the attention of associates. This is true regardless of the attributes of the company—small or large, for profit or nonprofit—a well-understood linkage between purpose, daily decisions, and behaviors is a rare occurrence.

In Chapter 4, Day Zero, you will find how to begin applying some basic practices to start your lean transformation in earnest. We’ll show you simple ways to demonstrate immediate progress and grab the collective attention of your organization. By the end of Chapter 4, Day Zero, you will have informed the management team, provided basic training, communicated with frontline staff, and begun your visual management system and daily standups to drive accountability.

So what is the mechanism that ensures that all levels of your organization are focused on the right things—those issues and problems that are most directly aligned with the greatest needs of customers and objectives of the company?

In a word: purpose. So what is purpose?

We like this definition: The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.

When people understand the reason something is done, they are provided the opportunity to understand, process, and internalize the activity. There is an old saying that goes, “People don’t care about the what, until they understand the why.” Shigeo Shingo ¹ captured this idea when he said, “Know-how alone isn’t enough! You need to Know-why! All too often, people visit other plants only to copy their tools and methods.”

The purpose of an organization—its vision, goals, and objectives— plays a critical role influencing what work gets done and how it gets accomplished. Focusing on the right work is difficult because we tend to confuse activity with results. The mental focus and stress that come from being busy can distract us into assuming we are focused on the right things. The initial decision we all need to make is determining what work is the most important to do (problem facing). The next step is to view the problem within the correct context (problem framing). Only after we are focused on the right problem, and see it within the appropriate context, should we begin to solve it! ² It is very difficult to know where you want to go (and what kind of course corrections may be called for) if you do not have a destination in mind. Without a clear, measurable goal, teams and people are left with misaligned vague aspirations. The authors remember listening to Jim Womack ³ discuss the interrelation of Purpose, Process, People. To become a great organization, Womack posed three questions:

1. What is your purpose?
2. What processes achieve your purpose and how lean (effective) are they?
3. How do you engage your people to agree on purpose and create lean processes, with fulfilling work, to achieve the purpose?

Without a well-articulated purpose that is widely understood and accepted, people tend to create their own reasons for being at work. By their very nature, individually developed purposes are not shared, aligned, or inclusive. It is interesting to note that Womack starts and ends with purpose in these elegantly simple questions. It is purpose that provides the direction and insight needed for people to take responsibility to identify and solve those problems that matter most. Moving them from speculation to insight, we want staff to know, not to have to guess.

So what makes a good purpose statement? We’ve all seen company mission statements, vision statements, strategic plans, and declarations of purpose in annual financial statements. Sometimes we’ll see a clear statement of purpose embedded within; often we do not. Let’s take a look at a few good examples (some are extracts from more extensive pronouncements):

It amazes us that, while lacking in specifics, well-stated purpose statements effectively provide the direction so that the staff can exercise judgment and take action appropriate to the situation. Show people the contribution of their daily work within the context of a meaningful purpose and they find a way to get there. Make your company’s purpose—and how people fit in—crystal clear, and they will feel valued and actively find ways to move toward established targets and contribute in ways you didn’t even think of.

What do you notice about these values/purpose statements? Here are a few elements to look for in a good purpose statement:

1. Clear, concise, and answers the question, Why?
2. Inspires and motivates people to act: build, focus, provide, create, connect
3. Memorable

Imagine your team living the organization’s purpose with clarity and intentionality. What would that look like? What would be different about the way people interact? When writing a great purpose statement it is essential to think about what ideal behaviors you want to inspire and then filter that through the three preceding elements to create a purpose statement that motivates and inspires staff.

Now is a good time to take a look at your organization’s purpose statement. You may refer to it as a vision or mission statement. Read it aloud as if you were reading it for the first time. Does it meet the preceding three criteria? Does it clearly and concisely answer the why question? Can the core elements be captured in a succinct sentence? Do you see people who are motivated to take action to openly address problems and are truly concerned about doing what is best for the customer, the company, and each other? Can you find evidence that your company’s purpose is influencing and guiding daily behavior?

True North

True North is a great description of what an effective purpose statement provides: a clear sense of direction. The lean life is a life of aligned and intentional striving and continually taking small steps and making gradual progress toward a worthy goal. True North acts like a compass pointing in the correct direction and acts to describe how things should be, not only what we think we can do today. Just as the needle of a compass aligns with north, people align with your organization’s purpose. This includes goals and aspirations around quality of your work, delivery performance, customer satisfaction, safety, productivity, people development, or any other worthy goal.

To better appreciate the impact of an effective purpose statement that provides a True North goal, consider the military, where the system of management is command-and-control, a highly directive system of supervision. In this type of a system it might seem as though the rank and file don’t need to know the purpose of a mission or operation. But what happens if, during a battle, there is no commanding officer to issue orders? How do soldiers determine the best course of action to take? That’s where mission intent comes in.

Mission intent provides a clear picture of the end-state by clearly calling out what results are expected. We find it interesting that, even in the military where people routinely follow the commands of their superiors, the importance of mission intent increases as the complexity and risk of the mission intensifies. How do you get staff to autonomously act in a way that is consistent with the purpose when they are under fire and can’t find a supervisor? Mike’s father, who enjoyed a career in the Air Force, liked to say, “Mission intent is essential when the bullets are flying because people need to make decisions based on the situation in front of them. They make informed decisions when they understand the objective of the undertaking.”

In most organizations, and certainly in the world of IT, complexity is ever increasing, risk is a real issue, and the path to move from the current state toward an aspirational goal (see the purpose statements in the Introduction) is at best unclear and emergent. True North provides clarity around intention and purpose and positions people to make informed decisions that align to the reason for the company’s existence. We often hear leaders lament, “How do I get my people to do the right thing without being told?” True North and the degree to which it is demonstrated in the behavior of your people in their everyday work is the right place to start your transformation.

True North for the IT Enterprise

A question we often get goes something like this, “Does the company need to have a single True North or can each functional area have its own?” By definition, everyone should be aligned to a single purpose, so the organization should have one True North statement. That said, we see great advantage in specific areas of the business actively interpreting the purpose statement to create a meaningful message and more definitive guidance for their team members. In IT, having specific goals around technology, security, user experience, data management, infrastructure, etc. provides clarity around the organization’s information and communication technology strategic intent.

Think of it this way, “My organization’s True North is to change the world through courageous discovery and innovation. How does IT contribute to our shared aspiration?” The unifying impact of True North is that it is impossible to be successful in one area of the business if we don’t succeed as a whole in moving toward our purpose. Each department, functional area, team, and individual strives to be a positive factor gradually moving toward True North.

Don’t overdo it though; it is easy to go down the path of having too many True North statements. Go to great pains to make sure that individual department purpose is aligned like a laser to the purpose of the company. Nothing will slow down strategy faster than each department acting as its own separate entity. As Dr. Stephen R. Covey said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” ⁹

Alignment—Using Purpose as a Plumb Line

When carpenters needs to build a cabinet so that it is aligned and squared to the window next to it, they uses a plumb line as a reference tool. A plumb line is a string with a weight suspended at its end, as shown in Figure 3.1. Gravity pulls the string straight toward the ground to create a vertical reference line. Purpose acts in the same way because the organization’s reason for being acts much like gravity, orienting and pulling everyone (hopefully inspiring them) toward a common direction and a higher purpose.

Why is it so important to gain clarity of purpose among everyone in your team, department, and company? The reason has everything do to with alignment. Most organizations have capable people who come to work to do a good job, but are mired in broken processes, uncoordinated handoffs with other departments and people, and conflicting priorities. People need to understand and identify with their organization’s intention to begin to understand how their personal goals line up.

As you mobilize your lean IT transformation by applying the systems in this book, you’ll begin to galvanize purpose within your people. A com mon True North is superior as it provides an organizational plumb line. If you don’t have a unifying company vision to rally around, purpose can be framed around team or department goals, but eventually you’ll need to move toward a shared organizational purpose. It is a process that takes years to fine-tune. As you start out, focus on clarifying a purpose that really matters and resonates with your team.

Alignment has a lot to do with understanding purpose within the context of your specific environment and the challenges you are currently facing. Because the path to get to the next level of performance is never clearly marked, we need a means to illuminate and clarify the way.

Once there is clarity around purpose (why are we here?) and values (what is most important to us?), it is not difficult for people to begin to see how their personal goals align with team goals, which align with departmental goals, which align with company goals. When everyone can answer the question “How does my work support the goals of the company?” alignment begins to take root. We like to refer to this as line of sight: when everyone has clear vision connecting personal purpose with the purpose of the organization.

Begin your transformation now. You don’t have to wait until everyone in your company is on the same page regarding your reason for being. But never lose sight of this goal. In our experience, enterprise alignment is the major element of enterprise excellence that gets plenty of lip service and very little constructive attention. Perhaps it is because purpose is so seldom defined in terms that are easily deciphered into action that we lack a meaningful goal to rally around. If your purpose is to deliver IT services with excellence and value, visualize what that specifically means in terms of daily work—for example, We all know priorities, Nothing unclear, and All fields labeled—and then begin to recognize obstacles and develop experiments to try to improve using structured problem solving.

Practice at Defining Purpose

Before finishing this chapter, let’s start preparations for your Day Zero kickoff and develop a purpose statement. If your company already has one in place, we recommend you still work through this exercise and then compare your work with the published version to assess its effectiveness.

Begin by asking your team a few questions and jotting down some ideas:

1. What is the most important thing our company does?
2. Who do we serve with our products and services?
3. How are people (customers, employees, suppliers, community) impacted by the work we do?
4. How is the world different because of the contribution we make?

Now revisit a few examples of effective purpose statements:

Zappos: To Live and Deliver WOW.

IBM: Dedication to every client’s success.

Oxfam: To create lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and social injustice.

Next, recall the characteristics of a good purpose statement:

1. Clear, concise, and clearly answers the question, Why?
2. Inspires and motivates people to act: build, focus, provide, create, connect
3. Memorable

It is the role of leadership to provide an actionable purpose that resonates with your people. It is likely your company already has a mission, vision, values, or purpose statement, so use this exercise to assess its effective ness. If you don’t have a formal purpose statement (or your current one has become corporate wallpaper and lost its meaning), consider developing a new purpose statement: ¹⁰

1. Apply the preceding three characteristics of a good purpose statement to create two or three versions (more if you’d like) of your purpose statement.
2. Using a colored pen, underline the phrases you like in each variation.
3. Take the underlined sections and blend the best of each to form a single purpose statement.
4. Read the new statement and ask yourself if it meets each of the three characteristics of a good purpose statement as outlined above. If the answer is no for any of the three, make revisions to your purpose statement to address that specific characteristic.
5. Once you are satisfied that the major characteristics of a good purpose statement have been addressed, socialize it to get feedback on its effectiveness and make adjustments as required:
   1. Include leaders, managers, and associates to get a good representation of opinion.
   2. Have them read the purpose statement and ask them the following questions:
      1. “Based only on what you read, what is the most important thing we are here to accomplish?”
      2. “Why are we here working together?”
      3. “Are you motivated when you read this statement? Why/why not? If so, toward what?”
      4. “What would happen if we had a shared understanding of these goals?”
   3. Be sure to takes notes during these conversations (or ask if you can record them) because you’ll often hear some great ideas and phrases you may want to use.
   4. Repeat the process until you are satisfied with your purpose statement.

You may be surprised at how effective this exercise is at revealing the impact of your current purpose statement. If people cannot demonstrate how it enables them to answer the four questions in statement 5(b), it may very well be time to revisit your company’s purpose and the way you are conveying it!

Note: A purpose statement can be developed for an organization, division, region, department, or team. The key is to ensure alignment of everyone’s purpose by using the organization’s purpose statement as a plumb line (see “Alignment—Using Purpose as a Plumb Line”).

Direction

Regardless of whether your company has a published mission, purpose, or True North statement, it is essential that you have agreement on a clearly articulated purpose among leaders, managers, and team members who will be working with you on the lean transformation. Involving people in the development and updating of your purpose statement will generate buy-in and support. If you are not certain that clarity, understanding, and consensus ¹¹ are in place, go back to leadership and spend more time with them. You’ll be glad you did. Without a clear direction, your transformation is at risk of being tasked with forging a new trail forward without a map and compass. The map is the course that will emerge as you experiment and learn from experience. The compass must first be in place!

Notes