Some days ago I was reading a post by Daniel Goleman, the father of Emotional Intelligence, about the companies “WHY”.
According to many studies, the business world is moving towards a “Purpose Economy”: the company “WHY” is becoming much more important than its “HOW” or its “WHAT”.
Consumers are confirming this trend: companies with a strong purpose, companies the clients can identify themselves with, are the ones with the highest customer engagement rates.
Let’s take the famous example of APPLE: in past years, ad campaigns where focused on creating an identity. It wasn’t as much about WHAT Apple did as about WHY they did it; thus, MAC users were people who shared the same goals (easy to use, creative, etc.).
Other examples can be found among companies who have strong social and environment purposes and goals.
All these companies have a clear purpose; this purpose can be seen throughout all activities and roles; there’s a deep corporate culture; people matter most of all because only through people can the goals be shared and achieved.
The fact that this is a real trend have pushed many companies to walk on this path for the wrong reasons – essentially, for marketing purpose. This has negative and sometimes devastating consequences on these companies, because there’s a clear inconsistency between the purpose and the actions, between what the company declares and what it does.
Stop for a moment to ask yourself WHY and have the courage to give yourself honest answers, because sooner or later you’ll get the same questions by your employees and your clients.
