Today it was HarknessKennett's great pleasure to host a networking session for our peers on the topic of ‘Purpose’. It seems to be the new hot topic – but getting your head around what this means for organisations – and what the role of the communicator is – is easier said than done. So we were very priveleged today to be joined by Chris Crofts (newly appointed Global Employee Engagement Director at Diageo and former Global IC Director at Aviva) and Jenny Burns (Just Group’s Brand and Customer Experience Director) who shared with us their research, thoughts and real-life case studies of embedding Purpose within an organisation.

Chris kicked things off, pointing out that first there were values, and now there’s Purpose – and perhaps it can feel like a fad. So why is Purpose getting so much airtime these days? Well, research has shown that between 1995 and 2014 public conversations on purpose has increased fivefold – and you can be sure if you ran that measure again now it would have grown exponentially.  There are 3 main reasons for this change in our attitudes:

1. Society has evolved – and with more over 45’s than under – we are adopting a more reflective approach – looking for the meaning and value in life - not just financial ‘success’

2. Consumer trust has plummeted, coupled with an increased desire for orgnisations to demonstrate a noble Purpose and not just to generate profit at any cost

3. In a VUCA society (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) organisations are looking for the key to survival in a modern world – by being agile and innovative, and importantly adopting a customer centric approach

Chris strongly believes that a well thought through and carefully articulated Purpose in a corporate environment can provide a ‘north star’ for employees; a real sense of direction and a code of behaviour that almost circumvents the need to look at the rule books, helping employees to intuitively know how to respond to all kind of situations in their working day. And there’s lots of data to reinforce that Purpose driven organisations are out performing those who have yet to find their ‘north star’ (see EY Beacon Institute research).

If you’re thinking about starting your own journey to articulating your organisation’s Purpose – it is important to make sure that you’re not focusing on making money and improving the share value, but rather looking at how your organisation makes a difference or adds value to the lives of its customers or the contribution it makes to society.

Chris shared with us her 4 ingredients to a creating a compelling purpose:

• Start with how you’re improving customers lives (your ‘why’)

• Be humanistic

• Make an emotional connection

• Use positive language

But creating your Purpose is just the start of the journey; becoming a Purpose driven organisation is not always as easy as it sounds. Research has shown that even in organisations where CEO’s are truly committed to the concept, they still struggled to embed it within their organisation. And where did they see the biggest opportunity to be? In communications. 

A standalone Purpose without a compelling narrative is a hard sell – so it is key to make sure you can articulate how this fits with your organisational strategy and plan. It’s also imperative to align other processes to the Purpose: it needs to become part of the way you recruit employees, reward employees and develop your leaders. It needs to become part of your culture – and you need to share it in an engaging way. Perhaps asking your employees ‘what is your Purpose?’ – and help them on a journey to discover this. Crucially, you'll need to be equally vocal internally and externally.

So Chris’s message is that it is time to step up – initiate the conversation, help create a compelling narrative and communicate it! Work with HR and align with Marketing and PR – and see how far your Purpose can take you.

Jenny Burns was next up to share her story from ‘Just’. Previously a Communications Director, Jenny’s role at Just was to create a new brand and customer experience for the newly merged ‘just retirement’ and ‘partnership’ – both of whom were significant players in the B2B pensions market – whose merger was necessitated by a change in annuity legislation in 2014 which saw their share prices fall by 50% in a matter of minutes.

Previously fierce competitors, to their credit their CEOs recognised that together they could survive and thrive – but separately that wasn’t so likely. Jenny came on board to help bring them together culturally and to develop one brand that they could all unite behind. Considerable market research also demonstrated that the traditional view of the ‘average’ grey haired and gardening retiree was completely out of touch with reality. The need to develop a strong visual identity, a new stance on photography, and the desire to represent customers the way the wanted to be seen led to the development of the ‘Just’ brand and a Purpose for everyone to work towards: We believe everyone deserves a fair, secure and fulfilling retirement. 

Having recruited 24 ‘Just Makers’ from around the business to help them create the new brand – these colleagues went on to design an experiential event which saw the business ‘close’ for 1 day to launch the new company to all. A critical element of this was the inclusion of 4 customers who had significantly helped them to develop their brand and new customer centric approach to retirement. You can see more about this here.

An innovative vehicle to demonstrate the belief in the new Purpose, has been the development of a new publication aimed at retirees: (Just) The Tonic. Having discovered that 97% of discussions online between those of retirement age had nothing to do with financial planning – the team at Just designed this publication to reflect this – recognising their customers as individuals with plans, worries, and interest in a whole range of topics. Without a doubt this publication is totally on message in supporting their Purpose to be more than just ‘money makers’.  

As always at these sessions, the Q&A was lively and informative – and great to hear the questions and thoughts that these 2 case studies threw up. Everything from how to handle cynics, how to measure performance and how this differs from Values was covered – and a whole lot else as well.

Many thanks to everyone for coming along and making it such an enjoyable event!

Published by Nicky

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