How Great Companies and Teams Discovered Their Purpose

Turns out, like individuals, most great teams and companies didn’t really discover their purpose until further down the road. In this article I’m going to look at how some great teams and companies discovered their purpose.

Here are the companies I'll be covering:

1. Ford
2. Nick’s Pizza & Pub
3. Chick-fil-A
4. Google
5. REI

We got a lot to cover, so let’s get started.

1. How Ford rediscovered its purpose

In 2008, the year Apple released the iPhone 3G, three American companies were fighting for their lives.

Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, the Big Three of the automotive industry in US, were running out of cash. To bail them out of the crisis, the government offered them a huge loan. While GM and Chrysler took the offer, Ford declined and bounced back into profitability pulling off a great comeback. This all happened under the leadership of Alan Mulally, a former Boeing executive who stepped in as CEO.

The key to the successful turnaround

Mulally believed “the key to Ford’s future was a return to the principles that had made it so successful in the early days, when Henry Ford was still sitting in the chair he now occupied.”

He dug through Ford’s archives “like a miner convinced that gold was close at hand.” And one day he found an old newspaper ad from 1925.

The ad featured a painting illustrating the original vision of Henry Ford. In the painting, you see a family with their Model T on a hill, and from the hill you could see roads running across the countryside with all kinds of cars on it. Below the painting was the headline — Opening the Highways to All Mankind. Anchored at the bottom was a statement of what Ford stood for.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Take a look at the ad here for yourself.

Lastly, I’d like to share a snippet about purpose from the ad:

An organization, to render any service so widely useful, must be large in scope as well as great in purpose. To conquer the high cost of motoring and to stabilize the factors of production — this is a great purpose.

The language may feel a bit old, but the spirit is still relevant. This document would serve as a polestar to guide Ford’s transformation; it would also be a touchstone to fall back on in times of doubt.

What can we learn from Ford about discovering purpose

Ford’s case study highlights that purpose is vital to success. To discover this purpose, look to the past and revisit your heritage. You’ll likely find important links to (re)connect you to purpose.

2. Pizza and Purpose

There’s a misconception that this purpose thing is only for big companies.

Nick’s Pizza & Pub is among the busiest independent pizza company in the US. But that’s not what impressed me. It’s the fact that a thousand dollar tips has shown up four different times!

The owner Nick Sarillo said this in one of his TEDx talks:

What’s the amazing stuff that goes on inside those big companies like Google? We can have a world-class culture in small business too… We can either let culture just happen, which happens mostly. Or we can be explicit and create the culture we want to be a part of. That’s what I decided to do. So my approach to doing this is: the first step in building trust at work is starting with purpose.

Small businesses and small teams too can harness purpose.

How Nick’s Pizza & Pub discovered their purpose

When Nick wanted to to grow his company, he turned to cultivating a culture around purpose. Before his team could proceed, they needed to discover their purpose first.

In his book, Nick explains their discovery process. They organized an off-site 2-day retreat gathering select team members to put the company’s purpose in writing. Here’s Nick’s initial thoughts about the retreat:

The idea seemed strange, even a little frightening: two long days of sitting in a circle and talking honestly about our business, even the bad stuff. There would be flip charts, creative projects with Play-Doh and markers, meditations, and, of course, that all-too-scary things: emotions.

Selecting the purpose discovery team

The team included servers, bartenders, cooks, busboys, two people from every work group, a newbie, a veteran, as well as the entire management team.

Questions to ask

At the retreat the team explored these questions:

• What are we doing right?
• What value are we adding?
• What are the contributions we make to our customers?
• What is the need we fill in the community?
• What part of work makes us feel good?
• What are we individually most passionate about?
• How do we define ourselves?

Process and tools

Day 1: Use flip boards to brainstorm ideas including:

• list of words describing what the company means to the team
• phrases describing positive elements of the company

Day 2: Turning all the ideas into a purpose statement over several hours

• start with a series of paragraphs
• summarize into one-page document
• edit down to a single sentence in the present tense

Purpose discovery is a life- and business- altering experience

Nick’s Pizza & Pub is one of my favorite case studies. I hope it inspires you to do a purpose discovery session with your team. Because as Nick puts it, it’s a “life- and business- altering experience.”

3. Finding purpose during tough times

In fall 2015 at the corner of 37th and Sixth Avenue in New York, a long line formed halfway down the block. If you’d lined up, you’d be greeted by a young employee with an iPad at the entrance.

Nope, it was not the launch of a new iPhone at an Apple Store. It was the first Chick-fil-A restaurant opening in Manhattan.

What better way to follow up with a pizza case study with a company that makes delicious chicken sandwiches!

You probably have heard great things about Chick-fil-A. As a great company as they are, Chick-fil-A did not have a purpose statement when they were founded. They clarified and discovered it during tough times.

Finding purpose in the midst of a crisis

In the early 1980s, Chick-fil-A was having a tough time. Rising interest costs slowed down their growth because it meant borrowing money costed more. On top of that, Wendy’s and McDonald’s came in the chicken market with chicken sandwiches and nuggets. As the two hamburger giants fought for market share, they bought up lots of chicken. The increased demand drove prices of chicken up, which meant Chick-fil-A’s ingredients’ cost rose as well. Things were so tough that the founder and former CEO Truett Cathy took no salary for a year.

To deal with the situation, Chick-fil-A scheduled a two-day offsite meeting with its leadership team to formulate a battle plan. They put their heads together, but eventually hit a wall. That is when Truett’s older son, Dan, shifted the conversation by asking basic and fundamental questions: “Why are we in business? Why are we here? Why are we alive?”

As Truett explains in his book, Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People (a wonderful book title!):

[Dan] really wanted us to consider the purpose of Chick-fil-A, and he believed the answers to his questions might lead us to solutions to our more immediate problems as well. So the eight of us began something of a brainstorming session, putting ideas on a blackboard as we went.

The following discussions would focus on what each team member thought was important. Eventually, they unanimously settled on two things that would become Chick-fil-A’s official Corporate Purpose:

To glorify God by being faithful stewards of all that is entrusted to us.” and “To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.

The Corporate Purpose would be inscribed on a plaque and placed by the front door of their headquarters welcoming visitors and reminding its employees of their purpose even to today.

Wonderful things happened after they adopted their Corporate Purpose, but I’ll leave those stories for you to read in his book.

What we can learn from Chick-fil-A about discovering purpose

1. Go offsite. If you’re going to talk about your purpose, make sure you do it offsite. Your team will be less distracted so they can focus on discovering purpose. By stepping away from the workspace, you’ll have a fresh and more objective point of view. Plus, the change of pace helps with coming up with ideas.
2. Use tools to brainstorms. Don’t just sit around the table and discuss. Chick-fil-A’s team used a blackboard to brainstorm. So make sure you get those whiteboards and markers out. Post-its are great too.
3. Reach an unanimous agreement. Make sure everyone on the team agrees and resonates with the purpose statement. Treat it as if it you are all jury members of a trial that requires an unanimous verdict.

4. Google Sales Teams’ Purpose Search

Let’s about how a sales team of Google searched for their purpose.

Before moving on, let me explain why I selected this case study.

The company mission statement myth

There is this myth that if my company has a purpose statement or a mission statement, my team doesn’t need a purpose.

The problem with company-wide purpose statements is that these statements need to accommodate for everyone across the enterprise. When you spread your net that wide, naturally, these statements are going to be abstract.

Don’t get me wrong. Company purpose statements are necessary. They inspire us. They give us a sense of direction. However, when it comes to day-to-day stuff, they cannot provide the clarity you need. Company purpose statements simply cannot be relevant at at micro level of a team.

Let me give you an example.

Google’s mission statement is:

to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

As Lisa Earle McLeod explains in her book, Selling with Noble Purpose:

Google’s mission is real and powerful. Yet it still needs to be translated for sales — particularly for the B2B salespeople who sell advertising to major corporations such as Home Depot and Nordstrom.

Before the sales team defined their purpose, even top sales performers were frustrated with one saying:

I’m passionate about our mission statement, but it’s easy to think of myself as just the money person — the one who delivers the sales so everyone else can achieve the mission.

Realizing this dissatisfaction, this sales team at Google reinterpreted their mission statement. They translated it into a purpose statement focusing on the individual business customer:

To help organize our clients’ information and make it universally accessible and useful.

This slight tweak creates clarity by focusing the sales team from the world’s information to the individual client’s. The team members now have clarity on the difference they make for each customer everyday.

How the Google sales team discovered their purpose

In her book , Lisa explains the process she uses with clients including Google. Here’s a summary.

A three-part process

The purpose creation purpose of Lisa has three parts:

1. How do you make a difference to your customers?
2. How are you different from competitors?
3. On your best day, what do you love about your job?

After exploring these three questions, look for keywords and key themes which are concrete and compelling to you. Refer to these as you brainstorm and write down variations of your purpose statement.

Sit on it

Before selecting the final statement, sit on it for a week. When you revisit your ideas, ask others for feedback to get another perspective. Finally, look at your ideas and find the ones that excite and inspire your team.

If you’d like to learn more about her methods, do check out her book, Selling with Noble Purpose. Highly recommended if you’re on a sales team.

Next stop: the outdoors!

5. REI’s Seven Steps to Discovering Purpose

Doesn’t it seem that stores are opening earlier and earlier every year for Black Friday? Sometimes I feel bad for those who have to work on Thanksgiving evening.

Looks like I’m not alone. If you love the outdoors, you probably know REI (which stands for Recreational Equipment Incorporated). Since 2015, REI closes its stores for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. In fact, Black Friday is a paid holiday for its employees; REI encourages its employees as well as customers to go outside on Black Friday. Here’s what the current CEO Jerry Stritzke said:

We believe that being outside makes us our best selves — healthier and happier, physically and mentally. But as a nation we’re still spending over 90 percent of our lives indoors and it’s a trend we need to tackle. I love that there is a community of people in this country who dedicate their lives to that mission, so together, we are asking America “Will you go out with us?”

I’d like to share with you about how REI’s leadership team clarified and discovered their purpose. Straight from REI’s former CEO Sally Jewell, she describes how they discovered their purpose:

We spent time as a large leadership group, 150 people asking, “Why does REI exist?” Then we asked ourselves five times, “Why is that important?” And two more questions: “What would happen if REI went away?” and then, “Why do I devote my creative energies to this organization?” We took those couple hundred sheets and came up with one core purpose: to inspire, educate, and outfit for a lifetime of outdoor adventure and stewardship. While we make money be being an outfitter, what we really do is inspire people to do things they aspire to do — educate them so they can try something that they’ve been uncomfortable trying before. And if we do that well, it works its way into their everyday lives and they begin to give back, and that’s the stewardship component.

Whew. That’s quite a dense and powerful quote. Let’s unpack it:

REI’s Purpose Discovery Process

1. Gather your team.
2. Ask: Why do you exist?
3. Ask “Why is that important?” five times.
4. Ask: What would happen if you went away?
5. Ask: Why do you devote your creative energies to your organization?
6. Gather everyone’s answers.
7. Review and internalize the results to craft your purpose statement.

There you have it — seven steps to discovering purpose.

Wrapping it up

This concludes all the case studies in this series. I hoped you enjoyed the contents. We looked at how Ford, Nick’s Pizza, Chick-fil-A, Google’s sales team, and REI discovered their purpose.

Onward

Howard Schultz, the former ceo (Starbucks lowercases their job titles) signed his first internal memo to employees with the word onward instead of the usual words like sincerely.

To this day, I am not sure if I had used the word prior to writing that memo. But at that moment the word struck me. It felt right, a call to arms that seemed to fit the daunting yet exciting adventure our little company was embarking on. Forward leaning. Nimble. Scrappy. An unquenchable desire to succeed, but always with heads held high. — Howard Schultz

Starbucks sailed through some pretty bad storms. If you want to know more about how they lost their way and how they got back into the game, I highly recommend the book Onward by the ceo himself. It’s personal. It’s human. You’ll probably never look at that cup of latte the same way again.

Since this is an email series about purpose after all, I’d like to share with you my favorite quote from this book:

Starbucks’ mission statement had never been just some framed piece of paper posted on our offices’ walls. Perhaps more than any other company, we had for years used our mission as a touchstone to make sure the guiding principles of how we run our business are intact and as a measuring stick for whether or not the company is aligned with its founding purpose, which as the highest level is to inspire and nurture the human spirit.

Where to next?

The business stories here have all inspired me. I hope they’ve inspired you too.

Take some time to discuss purpose with the people you work with. I’m sure it’ll spark a thoughtful discussion. It might take time, but the journey is worthwhile.

Purpose isn’t a one time thing. Like a delicate and beautiful bonsai, It has to be constantly cultivated.

So schedule a meeting, preferably somewhere outside of the office, and talk purpose. Having a clear and inspiring purpose will bring clarity to your work and make it more meaningful.

Good luck on all your endeavors and see you around.

Thanks for reading.

If you’d like to learn more about purpose in business, here are some helpful links:

• List of books about purpose in business
• I’m currently working on a book about finding and expressing the purpose of your business. You can get a free early look at it here.

Notes

Ford:

• If you’d like to read about how Ford came back, I recommend this book: American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company The quotes and contents I referenced to were from this book. This article from Fast Company about the painting in the ad is a great read too. Lastly, the original painting, titled Visions of Tomorrow, can be found at the Henry Ford Museum.

Nick’s Pizza & Pub:

• In case you’re wondering, here’s their purpose statement: “Our dedicated family provides this community an unforgettable place; to connect with your family and friends, to have fun, and to feel at home!”
• Here is the book I referred along with Nick’s TEDx talk. Enjoy!
• A Slice of the Pie: How to Build a Big Little Business
• TEDx Talk: creating a culture of trust, one slice at a time (Nick Sarillo)

Chick-fil-A:

• As part of the preparation for this case study, I made a trip to a Chick-fil-A restaurant. In case you’re wondering, I had a Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich Deluxe, some waffle fries, and an amazing strawberry milkshake.

REI:

• The case study is from Conscious Capitalism , a book by Whole Foods’ founder/CEO John Mackey. It contains inspiring stories from companies like Southwest Airlines, Costco, Google, Patagonia, and the Container Store. Highly recommended business book!