Lately, a couple of clients have been sharing their frustration with me. Their co-workers are uncooperative and unhelpful. They won’t do anything but the bare minimum and they are reluctant to help others. When we explore further, it seems likely that there is no articulated and agreed common purpose in their company. The industry or company circumstances have changed over the years but that has not translated into newly articulated purpose and appropriately crafted roles.
Is Your Team a Ship With No Compass?
Imagine a ship with no purpose or destination – it wouldn’t be surprising if the crew were somewhat uncooperative. They have no way of assessing the value of their contribution. Worse still, some workers think their ship is a cruise ship, others think it’s a ferry. The service provided by these different crew members is going to be very different. If you think you’re working on a ferry you may not be too keen on wearing sequins on stage for the evening show. This will come across as unhelpful and obstructive to the entertainment team. If you think you are on a cruise ship, you may be baffled by the other crew members’ interest in safety on the car deck.
Are They Obstructive Or Just Unaware?
It’s not surprising that when people are not cognisant of the purpose and how a new task fits into this purpose, they resist. They have not been educated on why this evolution is important, how it achieves the purpose or why it is their job. They believe this new task is way off their job remit, they’ve never been trained for it, they are not rewarded for it, and they’d rather not spend additional time at something they may well fail at.
If you don’t know the purpose of your team or company, you can’t know the purpose of your role either.
Can You Articulate Your Team’s Purpose?
So, do you know why your team or company exists? Could you articulate it? I think if you have a go, you’ll find it a challenging but revealing task. How elevated do you need to go in identifying why you exist? It’s very easy to get carried away and ladder up to world peace. If you want to find out more about this, I suggest reading up on ‘why‘ with Simon Sinek. For a balanced view and anything purpose related, take a look at Mark (hold my beer) Ritson , Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Melbourne Business School.
So now we’re straying into marketing. What’s marketing got to do with purpose? Well, what Mark Ritson and all good planners and marketers will tell you is that a positioning or a purpose is something you DO. It’s not there to sound good, it’s there to deliver on and to drive everything the company does and everything the company employees do.
Thinking about your team, what is the teams purpose? Consider in particular the verb you use. Is it there to drive something, support something, uncover something? And for whom, in what context is it doing so? Is it for the company, the brand, the customers, the stakeholders, ‘hardworking families’, mankind?
When you have a clear, strongly articulated purpose (don’t dilute it to achieve consensus!), identify the functions and ways of working you need to deliver it.
What does this purpose mean for the way you work, how you get involved, where your priorities lie?
Once you know why your team exists, you can articulate the defined responsibilities (not just tasks) of each role that will deliver to that purpose. This way of working empowers people rather than controlling them. In turn, this generates job satisfaction, superior performance, and greater productivity.
So define your purpose and the key behaviours that will deliver that purpose and reward on them. And if one of them is wearing sequins, then so be it!
