As co-founder of three PR agencies recognized as “most creative” and “best workplaces” I believe the two most powerful things leaders can do to build their employees and their organizations are to:  1) Discover and operationalize your “business purpose”; and 2) Help employees discover their “life purpose” so they can begin to actively live it, because even better than a “purpose-driven business” is one driven by “purpose-driven employees.” 

You can then invite employees to “find the alignment” between their individual purpose and that of your organization to create “greater engagement” that will help drive your business forward.

I know this from personal experience, communicating the “business purpose” of my first PR agency, PT&Co., which was to: “Create great work, a great workplace, and great communities that work.”  This is what focused and drove my co-founders and me to grow from a start-up to “Most Creative” and “Best Workplace” among all PR agencies in the U.S. within eight years. We didn’t use the term “business purpose” back in 1990, but that’s what we were communicating in proactively sharing who we were as an agency, what we were committed to doing, and how we served the community.

After 12 years of building PT&Co. with my co-founders, I was exhausted and burnt out. I sought help from an executive coach.  Suzanne Levy, the coach, reassured me that she could help but said that, first, I must “rethink” my life purpose so she could help me actively live that purpose and feel better.  At the time, I didn’t have a life purpose to “rethink,” but I brainstormed with myself and came up with: “My purpose is to choose joy, be mindful of joy, and share joy with others.”

I’ve been actively living my purpose now for the past 20+ years and, in doing so, have unleashed tremendous joy for myself and others, including during the past nearly three years of pandemic, racial injustice, riots, insurrection, growing polarization, increasing gun violence, and war.  In fact, the past nearly three years have been the most productive and joyful period in my life simply because I remained focused on living my purpose – I wasn’t distracted and derailed by external events.  Living my purpose every day allows me to be inner-directed, focused, and driven to leverage my talents, expertise, and passion in service of other people and our planet, which is how I define a life purpose.

My first-hand experience of the power – and “competitive advantage” – of operationalizing our agency’s “business purpose” and some years later, actively living my own “life purpose,” compelled me to start the consultancy, Joyful Planet LLC, following a gratifying, 35+ year PR career.

I believe if I can do “one thing” to help individuals and organizations, it is to help them gain clarity about their purpose so they can more actively “live” or “operationalize” it. 

This makes the work I do through Joyful Planet incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. By helping individuals and organizations gain greater “clarity” about their “life purpose” and “organizational purpose” I can help them unleash greater success, fulfillment, and joy in their personal lives, workplaces, and communities.

McKinsey & Company has been conducting ongoing research during the pandemic on the intersection of “individual purpose” and “organizational purpose.”  

The McKinsey Quarterly (April 5, 2021), “Help Your Employees Find Purpose – Or Watch Them Leave,” reveals among other things: “People who live their purpose at work are more productive than people who don’t.  They are also healthier, more resilient, and more likely to stay at the company.”  

And “…when employees feel that their purpose is aligned with the organization’s purpose, the benefits expand to include stronger employee engagement, heightened loyalty, and a greater willingness to recommend the company to others.”

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, I helped many people discover and articulate life purpose statements focused on creating greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in the world like this one: “My purpose in life is to build on the conversation of equity, inclusion and belonging to help create systemic change and the opportunity for everyone, especially diverse people to achieve our biggest goals and dreams.”  This PR executive said her life purpose statement excites her by capturing and communicating the impact she seeks to make in the world.

Importantly, my work helps people connect with colleagues through their individual “purpose” and “values” to create a greater sense of belonging.  Connecting to others in this deeper, more profound way cuts through the cosmetic differences that can sometimes separate and divide us. 

I believe, as author Brandon Peele says in Purpose Work Nation, that “shared purpose” rather than “group bias” can heal and bring us together as employees and, importantly, as citizens of this country and humans on this planet.

Kick starting the New Year by helping employees gain clarity about their life purpose can help make 2023 the healthiest and happiest year ever for your organization.