Why purpose lies at the heart of any successful business

Here’s a question I always like to ask, not because I’m trying to get all philosophical and existential, but because I want to help you get to the heart of what your business is all about: Why do you exist? 

Or to put it another way:

Why do you matter? Why do your customers value you? Why would they mourn you if your business ceased to exist? And what is it about how you do things that makes all this possible?

In a perfect world, this thinking would be done before you begin, before you take your first decisions to create a business or do something, but most of us don’t live in a perfect world. Instead, most of us live in a world where the decision to start has been made, the business is up and running, the thing is happening, and now we have the opportunity (and an urgent need) to think a bit more clearly about why we’re doing what we’re doing and how we’re going to be successful.

There’s very little that’s original about the strategic planning tools and models I use. They’re an amalgam of things I have heard, read and picked up along the way in my career. Two of the most useful models over the past 15 years have been the butterfly and the brick, particularly when used in concert with each other.

The butterfly 

The butterfly model helps you think about the value you create in the world. It’s a simple Venn diagram, where one wing asks ‘What does the world need?’ and the other asks ‘What’s special about you?’ The magic of this simple (and deliberately simplistic) construct is in how it forces you to confront the risks of building a plan outside of the overlap at the heart of the butterfly.

Create something that only speaks to what’s special about you, and you’re at risk of what an Australian political campaigner I once worked with would have called a ‘piss in a wetsuit’ – a wonderfully vivid description for something that makes you feel warm but no one else notices.

Create something that only addresses what the world needs and you risk acting on a universal insight but without any right to succeed or win. Others will likely have a greater right than you to succeed in that territory.

The power of the butterfly is forcing you to align the value you’re able to create with the value that the world needs to be created. This is where the area of opportunity lies, so this is where you should be looking to crystallise and define your purpose, your why.

Try to formulate your purpose statement using one of these constructs:

• Our purpose is to…
• We exist to…
• We imagine a world where…

Once you’ve drafted it, test it.

Is it true? Is it credible? Is it bold enough? Is it credible enough?

Does it talk to what you do today? Will it motivate and inspire what you could do tomorrow?

Does it give you room to grow? Does it address a real customer need? Does it create value? Will it inspire you to create irreplaceable value that your customer can’t get from anyone else?

Could you be bolder? Do you need to be more specific and crunchy?

Remember, this is more than just a social purpose. This is your overarching reason for existing. It can’t be too lofty; it needs to be specific to you. It needs to help you make decisions, maintain your focus, choose your priorities. But, equally, it can’t be too everyday and short term. It should be timeless and should outlive your medium-term ambitions and visions. Your purpose is something that is never achieved, but instead continues to guide, focus and inspire you as the world changes and demands new things from you.

The brick 

I’ve been obsessed with the power of the LEGO brick ever since I saw LEGO’s former CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp talk about reconnecting LEGO with its core purpose and placing the brick back at the centre of LEGO’s plans.

What Knudstorp realised (at a time when the world was becoming increasingly digital) was that LEGO was in the business of brick-making, because the physical brick (and how two bricks fitted so perfectly together) was its source of true differentiation. All sorts of implications flowed from there, from the need to lead in moulding techniques to the need to master an enormously vast global inventory of billions of bricks.

If thinking about the butterfly helps you make sure that the value you want to create as a business (or any kind of organisation) is aligned with something the world values, then thinking about the brick helps you focus on what exactly you do (and need to do) to create that value.

So in LEGO’s case, the butterfly anchors LEGO in a world of play and limitless creativity, while the brick highlights that it’s literally their LEGO brick that gives them the unique right to be successful in that world of creative play.

Between them, the butterfly and the brick can help you unlock a deeper understanding of the business system you’re trying to grow. What’s your brick? What’s the differentiated source of value that sits at the heart of your ability to deliver on your purpose? If your purpose is your WHY, what’s your HOW?

I hope interrogating and understanding your why, your how and the business you’re really in will unlock new clarity for you, both on what matters most today (where you need to focus your efforts) and on which bets and opportunities are most appropriate to focus on in the future, helping you back yourself to make the right decisions and stay the course.

In some cases, doing this work may help you realise that there isn’t enough there, and that you need to think again about the purpose and positioning of your business. That’s hard medicine to swallow, but better to take it now than later.

Matt Jones, author of Lessons from Gin, is a creative strategist, a keynote speaker and an accidental entrepreneur. In 2013, Matt co-founded Four Pillars Gin and helped it grow into a business that was named the world’s best three times. Today, Matt is one of Australia’s most in-demand keynote speakers and experts on the subject of brand and business growth, coaching leaders on how to leverage the power of communications, design, emotions and experiences to achieve their goals. Matt is a mentor at Startmate, Australia’s leading start-up accelerator, helping to nurture the next generation of Australian success stories.

Written by Matt Jones.
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