GENERATION FLUX'S SECRET WEAPON (4)
In a world of rapid change and great uncertainty, the greatest competitive advantage of all may be at your very core.
THE POWER OF PURPOSE
While
speaking to dozens of Generation
Flux leaders over several months, it became clear to me that there is
no single formula for how to run an inside-out enterprise, no
standard org chart, no "Ten Rules" that everyone follows.
In fact, it makes little sense to try to prescribe one, given the
range of passions that inform these businesses and the range of
stakeholders they serve. But the best leaders of these enterprises do
have one thing in common; they have all carefully thought through the
creation of a corporate environment that helps them, and their
employees, try to live by the company's mission.
Robert
Wong is Executive Creative Director of Google Creative Lab, an
internal skunk-works team that helps the search
giant market
its products and inspire its engineers. "In high school,"
he says, "they gave us a test every year that was supposed to
give guidance about what we should do when we grew up. Every year,
'preacher' was in the top three results for me. I'm not religious, so
I always discounted it. But now, it makes sense. Working with my team
and others is, in some ways, preaching. It's all about providing
inspiration."
Wong's
approach is anything but squishy. Wong, who reports to Google
Creative Lab leader Andy Berndt, says he is guided by what he calls
"the four Ps," which stand for purpose, people, products,
and process. Wong's four Ps are listed in descending order of
importance and are starkly more humanistic than the classic four Ps
that marketing students have memorized for decades--price, product,
promotion, and place. "If you choose the right purpose, certain
people will be attracted," says Wong. "They will be
motivated and unified. They require less management oversight. Those
people will then conceive and execute products, products that fit the
purpose. The process fills in the open spaces. But strong purpose
ties it together. You have to excavate the purpose first."
These
four Ps seem to offer the perfect framework for Creative Lab. It's
the work of someone who's deeply aware of the talent Google wants to
attract and the mobility those very same people now take for granted.
"The manager era is gone," says Wong. "Your staff can
leave. They have the option to go. That's why purpose is so
important. It's the best way to keep talent."
Wong's
approach is broad enough to survive changing trends. For instance, it
would serve Google just fine if the job market for creatives were to
become less mobile. To fashion icon Eileen Fisher, who has long
talked about "business as a movement," that kind of
adaptability is simply part and parcel of running a mission-based
company. Fisher finds herself constantly reviewing one
simple-sounding but complex question: "How does my purpose
connect to our company's purpose?"
Fisher
is an unconventional leader.
Meetings
begin with the ringing of a bell and a moment of quiet, and seating
is always in a circle, giving everyone equal authority. The company
has a no-email policy on weekends. Meetings before 10 a.m. on Monday
and after 3 p.m. on Friday aren't allowed. The company pursues a host
of sustainability efforts and advocates for in-need women and girls
around the globe through the Eileen Fisher Community Foundation.
A
few years ago, Fisher decided to focus more of her time on her
foundation. But she eventually concluded that she could have a
greater positive impact on the world by running the company. Last
year, after hearing Cardoso speak at a conference, Fisher asked the
motivation adviser to conduct a series of workshops for her and her
executives. During one exercise, Cardoso asked Fisher to sit on a
stool and imagine that she was the embodiment of her own purpose. "I
don't even recall what I said," Fisher says, "but I
remember feeling like I could be more fully myself, that I could
bring those values to all these decisions that I make. Am I doing
what's really important?" Fisher now returns to that specific
stool when she's got a difficult question to grapple with. She calls
it her "purpose chair." Sitting there for a few minutes a
day, she says, "helps me be clearer about myself and what
matters most."
Eileen
Fisher Inc. has posted record earnings the past two years. "We're
successful financially," Fisher says, "but we're pretty
stressed out." So she's begun asking questions about the cost
and meaning of financial growth. "Should we be measuring
something beyond financial results? It's disruptive a little, but
we're going deeper," she says. "We want to be a great
company more than we want to be a big company. If selling more means
creating more stress for ourselves, should we do it?"
Fisher
is committed to continually fine-tuning the culture of her business.
"We have purpose programs for our leaders. We're looking at
getting participation from all of our employees. We're setting up a
learning lab. I really believe that business is going to have to
think this way."
BY
ROBERT
SAFIAN
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