Unleashing Business as a Force for Good
There is a growing global movement that is questioning the purpose of business and its role in our society. There is a strong challenge emerging against the idea of shareholder primacy as well as the focus on short term profits, which is having an adverse impact on employees, stakeholders and the planet. More a business to be truly sustainable, there needs to be greater focus on creating deeper engagement with it’s employees and stakeholders.
However, we cannot create truly sustainable businesses unless we have highly engaged employees and a culture that cares. The lack of employee engagement in most organisations is good indicator that employees are seeking more meaning in the workplace. Purpose is the ‘holy grail’ of employee engagement.
A Korn Ferry study found that companies that focused their employees on the organization’s purpose, posted compounded annual growth rates of 9.85% compared to a 2.4% for the whole S&P 500 Consumer Sector.
Creating a truly purposeful organisation requires determination and courage by leaders – and time. It takes a special kind of leader to put the interest of stakeholders before profit. And to create sustainable businesses, leaders need to reconsider how they are engaging their employees, customers, suppliers, partners and the communities they operate in.
To create a truly purposeful and sustainable organisation, we need to look at aligning both internal and external stakeholders with the values and purpose of the organisation as well as understanding what are the external factors that can support the creation of a purposeful organisation.