The Purpose Linked Organization: How Passionate Leaders Inspire Winning Teams and Great Results (BUSINESS BOOKS) - Hardcover

Love, Alaina; Cugnon, Marc

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071624708 ISBN 13: 9780071624701

Publisher: McGraw Hill, 2009

Synopsis

Meet the indispensablepeople who can bringyour organizationto that crucial next level.
How many can you recognize?
And wheredo you fit in?

The Builder: Creating a strong sense ofurgency to deliver results, they’re thedriving force of a growing business

The Connector: Born communicators,adept at negotiation andrelationship-building

The Conceiver: These “intellectualacrobats” think outside the box,imagine new possibilities, andcontribute to innovation

The Altruist: On the lookout to raiseyour organization’s profile whilebenefiting the world at large

Leadership development experts AlainaLove and Marc Cugnon have identified tensuch “Passion Profile Archetypes,” and in ThePurpose Linked Organization, you’ll learn thestrengths, vulnerabilities, and proper care andfeeding of them all.

Authors Love and Cugnon offer easily implementableways to channel the power of each individual’spassions in a positive, purposeful direction.You’ll understand how to link skills, values,and passions to performance―and how doingso will bring the results your organizationcan’t afford to be without.

Just as important, you’ll be able to confidentlyassess your own purpose and passions so thatyour own organizational role will be as engaging,fulfilling, and productive as possible.Most employees spend more than 84,000hours of their lives at work. When that time ispersonally meaningful, great things can happen,which will enrich your organization, thecustomers it serves, and even society as a whole.

About this title

About the Author

Alaina Love, SPHR, is president and cofounder of Purpose Linked Consulting and the creator and author of many of the firm’s leadership workshops and assessment tools. Formerly a human resources executive at multinational corporations, Love now provides leadership, team, and organizational development services to Fortune 500 firms, private companies, hospitals, and universities.

Marc Cugnon is CEO and cofounder of Purpose Linked Consulting. With over three decades of experience as a senior executive in the pharmaceutical industry, he now provides leadership development, strategic planning, and marketing consultation services to large firms, small businesses, and international universities.

From the Back Cover

FREE WITH YOUR PURCHASE:
Exclusive access to "The Passion Profiler," an online tool for identifying your Passion Archetypes--your individual strengths, vulnerabilities, and capacity for achievement, as well as those of every member of your organization.

Work without passion and purpose?
Don't you and your organization deserve better?

"Grow your business and inspire your team with the secrets of purpose and passion in this highly practical book."
--Marshall Goldsmith, bestselling author of What Got You Here Won't Get You There

"Smart leaders understand that productivity and innovation would be greatly increased if only they could fully engage their people by putting them in jobs that match their passions and talents; but how? The Purpose Linked Organization provides a novel, practical, and no-nonsense approach to help leaders accomplish that goal."
--Henri Lipmanowicz, former president of Merck, Intercontinental Region and Japan; chairman and cofounder of Plexus Institute

"This book is timely and essential for developing passionate leaders."
--Virgil L. Smith, vice president, Gannett Co., Inc.

"If you're a business leader searching for better ways to develop your organization's talent . . . don't miss this book!"
--Joseph Pieroni, CEO, Daiichi-Sankyo

"Love and Cugnon offer leaders the missing link for boosting employee performance beyond the level that skills and competence alone will allow."
--Patricia O'Connell, management editor, BusinessWeek

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

THE PURPOSE LINKED ORGANIZATION

HOW PASSIONATE LEADERS INSPIRE WINNING TEAMS AND GREAT RESULTSBy ALAINA LOVE MARC CUGNON

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 Alaina Love and Marc Cugnon
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-07-162470-1

Contents

Chapter One

Why Purpose and Passion Matter

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. —Mohandas Gandhi

Purpose is such an elusive and esoteric concept that many of us cannot imagine its place in the results-oriented, revenue-driven environments that constitute our daily work world. But purpose, leveraged as carefully as organizations leverage the other strengths available to them, can be a powerful conduit to success.

For us as individuals, purpose is the driver that propels us through life and gives meaning to our daily existence. It's the catapult that can launch us out of bed in the morning with the intent to make a difference during the day ahead. Without purpose, and its outward expression through our passions, life becomes a series of unconnected activities and actions that do not lead to the sense of fulfillment and joy so vital to our well-being.

Consider the average full-time employee. Vacations and holidays aside, most employees spend more than 84,000 hours of their lives at work, a monumental portion of their total waking moments. It's easy to understand how hugely important it might be that these hours at work are spent doing things that are personally meaningful, creative, and imaginative while also enriching the organization and society as a whole.

In the years that we've conducted research on purpose and passion, no one has ever said he or she did not want a life that mattered. Indeed, most of the people we have worked with have been focused on leaving a positive legacy through their work. No one voted in favor of a passionless existence, devoid of the sense of engagement that fervent enthusiasm engenders. Instead, the talented leaders we've spoken to want the time that they spend on their jobs to matter—for more than just a paycheck. Increasingly, we've learned, individuals are searching for a work identity that is an expression of their purpose and passions and a home for that identity inside the organization.

It's true that these concepts seem as though they might be more at home in the world of self-help talk shows than in the world of shareholder value. After all, business schools are teaching future leaders about balance sheets and return on assets, not about how to identify and leverage employee purpose and passion ... it's just too "soft," too imaginary, for the hard-core reality of managing a bottom line.

So why should leaders be concerned about the concepts in this book? Why should they pay as much attention to purpose and passion as they do to market competitors and revenue growth? Because these concepts are anything but soft. Research has proven that while there is a baseline level of pay that individuals expect for their work, offering more money as a means of motivating employees will not lead to greater motivation and commitment to work. In fact, more money may have the reverse impact on motivation and performance, especially if work is devoid of meaning. Purpose and passion are the internal drivers that determine employees' performance and their commitment to the organization, factors that ultimately have a very real impact on business results. Purpose and passion are the mechanisms through which employees find meaning in their work.

These concepts are easier to translate to the work environment than most leaders might think. Purpose, for example, may seem to be merely conceptual—that hard-to- define essence that gives meaning to life. But passion is just the opposite. It's the emotional counterpart to purpose—the fire within, the compass that points people straight to the heart of who they are. Leaders may find it difficult to identify the purpose of each employee, but passion is much easier to discern. While it's the manifestation of something held much deeper in employee consciousness, passion shows up in noticeable ways. It's the sparkle in employees' eyes on a Monday morning; the intensity of their excitement about a new project assignment; the pride that they take in the company's achievements; or the long hours they'll willingly devote to solving a problem, just because it intrigues them. Passion is the visible evidence of our strongest beliefs about the importance of our role in the world. It is the potent emotional substrate that helps us to demonstrate the meaning that our existence and our work hold for us. Passion gives a voice to our purpose.

Psychologists and social scientists have long theorized that the components of a fulfilling and happy life include love, intimacy, and satisfying work. In the years since Freud and others posited this theory, a multitude of skill assessment and career self-efficacy instruments have been developed, most of which measure the degree to which individuals possess a skill or feel self-confident about their ability to perform the tasks associated with their job. In essence, these tools measure what these individuals are likely to be able to do rather than who the individuals are at their core and how who they are contributes to their psychological well-being in a way that impacts their contribution to the organization.

In an era when individuals are seeking roles in which they can "do who they are" rather than "be what they do," it is essential for organizations to identify the specific passions residing in their talent pool and apply those passions to the business of getting results. While employees' skills will always be important to successfully achieve goals, their passions will define the difference between marginal success and flourishing, both for the organization and the individual. Furthermore, research in the field of positive psychology suggests that purpose is a unique predictor of happiness in individualistic societies (such as the United States). In one important study in which one-third of the respondents saw their job as a calling, those respondents worked more hours, missed less work, and reported higher life satisfaction than others doing similar work. This is flourishing in action.

Tightly woven like the strands of the double helix, purpose and passion are life-giving substances. For individuals, they create the vital momentum and sense of possibility that allows them to express all that they are in their work and in their play. For the organization, these substances are equally important components of the company's DNA that contribute to business success. A company with a well-defined purpose and passionate employees who share it can unleash a megawatt boost of employee enthusiasm that can only be born when purpose and passion align. Unfortunately, this is a resource that most companies are not tapping into nearly enough. And, as we'll see in the coming pages, it's a widely available asset that requires nothing more from the organization than an outlet for its expression.

A Search for Fulfillment

Karen Bankston, Ph.D., is the senior vice president and head of the Drake Center, a specialized long-term acute care hospital that is located on the same site with a skilled nursing facility and an assisted living center on a 42-acre campus in Cincinnati, Ohio. Drake is part of Health Alliance, the largest health care system in the area, which owns seven hospitals and has 15,000 employees. Dr. Bankston is among a growing number of talented individuals who have struggled with finding a role in their organizations in which their purpose and passions could flourish.

Having begun her career as a nurse with a hospital in Youngstown, Ohio, Karen spent her early years working as a healer. She enjoyed interacting with patients at the front line of health-care delivery and worked well with other members of the medical staff. Because of her talent for managing people and projects, Karen matured into a capable administrator and later achieved the coveted role of vice president, working for Health Alliance. Along with each change in position came more recognition and more responsibility, as well as the financial independence that the additional compensation resulting from advancement provided for Karen and her family.

But after spending a number of years at this level, Karen became increasingly aware that her accomplishments had come at a price. Working in administration had, over time, disconnected her from what mattered to her most. "I began to realize," she said, "that I had lost touch with what attracted me to medicine in the first place. My purpose, I've discovered, is really about connecting people who need healing to the resources that can make healing happen. And I know that because I'm passionate about it. The role that I was playing in the organization pulled me further and further from my purpose."

At this phase of her career, Karen found herself spending more time managing politics than she wanted to and less time building relationships that impacted patient care. While politics are on the daily menu in the diet of most executives, Karen had gotten her fill of witnessing important decisions being made based on political favoritism. Those decisions, Karen believed, ultimately impacted the quality of patient care that was so central to her purpose. Coupled with this, she felt that management espoused values of integrity, honesty, and respect for everyone, yet they failed to walk the talk themselves. The organization was in turmoil, experiencing great change and facing huge financial challenges, but the team rowing the raft through the white waters of the river wasn't behaving in concert with values that put patients and employees first.

After a period of intense introspection, during which time Karen focused on the toll that her work was taking on her life, she realized that the job was no longer for her. In addition to dealing with the chasm that existed between her current work role and what she felt was important to accomplish, Karen was also trying to manage fallout caused by a boss whose abusive behavior was fracturing the organization. She found herself saddled with healing the organization and helping others to stay afloat emotionally, while at the same time trying to counsel her boss about his behavior. And the more difficult things became financially for the hospital, the more his bad behavior escalated.

The environment had finally become too toxic, and Karen had reached her breaking point. Despite years of hard work delivering results for Health Alliance, she arrived at a pivotal moment in her career when she thought, "I have to get out of here!" Reflecting on it later, Karen realized, "I was getting physically sick, and I began to understand that what was making me sick was my job. The environment in the organization was not allowing me to do what I believed I was there to do. I was running two-thirds of the hospital, and I had gotten big awards for my accomplishments, but I was miserable."

Against the wishes of the head of Health Alliance and numerous colleagues, Karen decided to resign. But so determined was the organization to keep her that it offered her a retention bonus, which Karen promptly refused. Unwilling to take no for an answer, the head of the organization upped the ante financially. However, it didn't have quite the anticipated effect on her decision that senior management intended. Upon receiving the offer, Karen retorted, "It's clear that you don't know me."

The story might have ended here for many other individuals whom we've encountered at just such a career crossroad. Many of the talented leaders we've spoken with point to their role at work as being core to their sense of fulfillment. Living a life of quiet desperation in the wrong job or the wrong organization is not an option that many of them chose. Yes, these are capable people with mortgages to pay and families to feed, like so many of us, but some made courageous decisions to pursue a career that allowed them to express their purpose and passions. Were they frightened? You bet. Were they sure of where to go? Not always. But they inherently knew that staying where they were would not lead to doing work that meant as much to them as it may have meant to the organization. They wanted a life that matters.

Fortunately for Karen, four months after her departure the company asked her to become the chief operating officer (COO) of University Hospital, working for someone that she knew had similar values to her own. The problem boss would no longer be part of her work life, and she thought there was a chance that things had changed. She was happy—for a while.

After a time, the familiar old pattern reemerged, and Karen found herself being promoted to yet another corporate job that once again moved her away from the people who touched the patients. She was dealing with external affairs for the organization; it was a role that despite its importance was less directly connected to patient care. Once again, the organization was in danger of losing her—this time for good. Karen had begun to look for another job outside of the area, and she became a front runner for a job in California.

At about the same time, the Health Alliance organization identified a turnaround project that was perfect for Karen, and it offered her the position that she now holds. Here she has found "the freedom and resources to make the connections that help others heal." In her new job, Karen is able to directly interact with team members who serve patients—from the individuals involved in maintaining a clean facility, to the staff that provides security, to the doctors and nurses who care for the patients. She looks for frequent opportunities to connect with her team, and she enjoys walking the halls of the hospital just to chat with patients and staff and keep her fingers on the pulse of the organization. Karen is where she wants to be—at the front line of patient care, making sure that the hospital delivers the highest-quality service by designing a culture in which everyone's passions can be leveraged.

When we last spoke with Karen, the job was going well and she was exuding the kind of excitement that comes from knowing that you're in exactly the right role and making a positive difference. She has managed to make what was once a financially struggling business into a thriving entity that is running in the black. But along the way, Karen has learned some important lessons about herself as a leader and about her role in life and work. "So much about leadership is about the people," she shared. "Those of us in executive-level jobs can make decisions based only on the information that is filtered to us. The real work is done by those touching the patients—giving the medications, mopping the floors, or making the meals. Otherwise, the hospital is only bricks and mortar. In this new leadership position, I am allowed to be my 'whole me.' I am once again in touch with my purpose and living it every day. If any future role I am asked to play here isn't about that, well, ... I'm simply not interested."

Seeking a Better Way Forward

Karen's story is all too familiar. Many large organizations undertake the process of defining a corporate mission that serves as the underpinning for their vision of the future. Enormous amounts of time and energy are devoted to developing a few important sentences that can be put to paper, with the intent to create a philosophical framework that catalyzes the organization into action. The mission can be considered the raison d'être for the company—that is, the reason for being that is intended to engage employees and propel the business forward. Yet many of these same organizations forfeit the benefits they might otherwise gain from their employees because they fail to connect with the important purpose and passions of those employees.

In this exercise of mission crafting, what large organizations all too often overlook is the direct connection between mission and purpose. We could almost do away with the term "mission statement" and replace it with "purpose statement" for a far more accurate description of what this document is meant to evoke. At its best, a purpose statement engages the hearts and minds of employees and customers alike, pointing the way toward common goals they can collectively embrace. At its worst, the statement becomes a dusty document on the shelves of managers throughout the company—unused, irrelevant, and forgotten. Or worse yet, it becomes the rallying point for employee cynicism when the company fails to live up to the noble ideas the document contains.

What if we could take the concept of purpose statements further by applying it to the single greatest asset of any organization—its people? What if we began to explore and understand what purpose means for the individual rather than merely for the organization? What if businesses could learn to leverage individual purpose and multiply the power of its impact on motivation, creativity, and results in a way that would make a meaningful difference to both employees and organizational results?

Accessing individual purpose would release a new kind of energy for fueling success. We call it "purpose power," and it's the energy that is generated when the finely tuned corporate engine is working at its best. So just imagine the potential purpose power of an organization like Ford Motor Company, which had 300,000 employees worldwide in 2007. Imagine its impact on the generation of ideas, the development of products, the resolution of market challenges, and the quality of service provided to its customers. Imagine the difference that might have made in the destiny of this 105-year-old industry icon. What CEOs wouldn't want an exponential increase in the power of the corporate engine at their fingertips and the ability to harness and apply that power to the business of growing the business?

(Continues...)

Excerpted from THE PURPOSE LINKED ORGANIZATIONby ALAINA LOVE MARC CUGNON Copyright © 2009 by Alaina Love and Marc Cugnon. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw Hill
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071624708
• ISBN 13: 9780071624701
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256