Defining the actual purpose of the product or service after ideation and prior to prototyping, can save you time, money and importantly, heartache. And heart is where we are heading next.

 

There is a movement happening and it’s global. Its aim is to bring heart back into business. Businesses, big businesses, are being asked to make a contribution. They are being asked to consciously consider how they are improving lives. How are they giving back? What is their social bottom line?

 

I have been fortunate to have developed a relationship with Simon Sinek’s Start With Why team over the last few years.

Ideation has tested resources and had several conversations around ‘Why’ purpose is important to individuals and to organisations.

 

One of the best conversations was with Peter Docker, Sinek’s right-hand man in Europe and co-author of his latest book. We were comparing the differences we felt about our own businesses when we nailed our purpose, our motivation, or to con the cliché, “our reason for getting up in the morning”.

 

I describe my discovery as a ‘kerklunk’ moment. Docker tells me he had ‘popcorn’. I fell into mine, his lifted everything! What we agreed on was that the shift was incremental, yet incredible. The reason we started our businesses became crucial to all decisions we made. Sounds obvious, but one of the most common things I hear in workshops or consultations is, “I’ve been reminded about the reason I started my business in the first place”. We get so caught up in the doing that we lose sight of the reason we are doing anything at all.

 

Discovering your ‘Why’ is not a 5-minute process. But it’s worth every one of the seven to ten hours it takes to identify. Suddenly you have a benchmark for everything you want to do and the way you action everything.

 

Zappos, the online shoe retailer based in Las Vegas, is a great example of an organisation living their ‘Why’ the best way they can. They are committed to providing Wow! through customer service. And they do. Their KPIs are geared to this.

 

For their call centre staff, it’s not a matter of how many calls per hour and how many sales they make. Their performance indicators are “Did our customers speak to a human being in under twenty seconds?” and “How many thank you cards were sent out by the team this month?"

 

Having a ‘Why’ doesn’t make you foolproof and it doesn’t make things effortless, but it does provide the rudder and the direction for each and every decision you make. And each decision you make is crucial to the culture of innovation in your organisation.