Write Your Company’s Obituary: Identify or Rediscover Your Company’s Purpose Having to write your company’s obituary sounds a bit morbid but there’s a good reason why doing this is important. One result is that doing so will help you identify and rediscover your company’s purpose. Josh Levine is a culture company strategist and works with technology, social enterprise organizations, and firms to help them improve their work. His goal is to make the employees love what they’re doing by building strong relationships, higher trust, and deeper engagement. Josh published a book called Great Mondays: How to Design a Company Culture That Employees Love. It talks about all his learnings for the past 10 years in advancing the idea of company culture as a strategic advantage. It defined what culture is and gives people the tools that they need to improve the culture. Write your company’s obituary This was a tool that Josh’s mentor used and many clients would react negatively upon hearing it. There is more to sales than just putting the product out there and selling it. It’s more than just the numbers. Doing business isn’t only about the money; it’s also about understanding what you are trying to do with your company and with your life. This is also about knowing your own purpose and helping the organization discover its ‘why?’ Imagine that your business closes its doors after 30 years. Don’t think of the reason why it shut down. Your goal is to write down two or three short paragraphs about why your company will be remembered and will be most missed. This will give you the opportunity to see what you achieved that made the difference. Josh’s team works with a board executive team and leadership peers together. They make teams write because what matters isn’t just the end result. They also consider the kind of language, the words, and the phrases used together. Obituary exercise Don’t stop short of the fantastic. When you start writing your company obituary, you need to go beyond how far you think you can make it. Be bold about the things that you think your company can achieve. #Salessuccess The point of the exercise is to come up with your achievements and look for the possible ways that you’re going to achieve those. Josh had a client who said that they would solve poverty. It’s a far-fetched goal and impossible to do but it didn’t keep them from aiming to do so. When the discussion happened, the team thought of how to make it work and figured out that their technology connects communities together. The community that works together will solve poverty. With that, their previously written achievement of solving poverty now sounds plausible. Define your purpose Next, you have to define your purpose. The company’s values are the hows and the company’s purposes are the whys. Businesses and companies need to figure out the why behind what they’re doing. You won’t be able to find your purpose if you’re thinking about this quarter’s return or this quarter’s sales numbers. As a sales leader, you can help define the purpose by shaping the culture of your company according to the company’s vision. You can help strengthen the team and find the values and purpose of the company over time. Components of a company's culture There are six components mentioned in the book Great Mondays. The first three are as follows: Purpose Values Behaviors The first two define the company’s purpose and values.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related