"For-Purpose" Or "For-Profit"?
Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash
At some point, I think we all have to decide if we’re “For-Profit” or “For-Purpose”.
Yes, we can and should be about both, but one has to take precedence in defining who we are and what we’re doing.
To be “For-Profit” is to be focused on the numbers. It’s about delivering financial returns as the primary metric, which means doing whatever is needed to achieve the numbers on the board.
This certainly helps crystallize our actions but it can also lead to a number of compromises.
When it’s a choice about taking on work outside our core in order to hit our numbers. When it’s about diluting how we position ourselves in our markets in order to not turn off potential revenue sources. When it’s about taking shortcuts with our people and their wellbeing in order to ensure targeted margins stay intact.
Those choices, which may be genuinely necessary at times, can derail us if they become our normal course of action, or if we as leaders keep making such compromises on a regular basis.
To be “For-Purpose”, though, is something different.
It’s about defining a clear vision of who we are as an organization and the specific problems we solve. It’s about saying no, to specific prospects and specific opportunities, if they don’t align with our core vision. It’s about taking those actions that demonstrate and exemplify our culture - how we want people to behave, what we want them to believe, what we want all of us to aspire to.
To be For-Purpose is demanding because it forces us to be clear about trade-offs, both short and long term, and then actually go make them. To be For-Purpose forces us to understand and believe in ourselves and what we’re trying to get done.
And if we (intelligently and practically) do all of this, the money will follow. Maybe not at the pace we’d like, and maybe not to the scale we might originally have envisioned, but it will be there. And it will come with strengthened foundations and a deeper commitment among all of our stakeholders (the ones that matter anyway).
The decision to be For-Purpose is not an easy one, and it isn’t ‘one and done’ either. It’s a choice we need to keep reaffirming, keep making. It’s a difficult choice but, ultimately, that choice makes us.
