Purpose is a Powerful Driver for Performance

Here’s a not-so-bold claim: individuals who feel a strong sense of purpose in their work are happier, more engaged, and ultimately more successful than those who aren’t clued into this powerful motivator.

While my research is anecdotal via my coaching clients, no doubt those driven by a sense of purpose enjoy what they are doing, are more resilient in the face of organizational and personal challenges, and, frankly, excel.

So, what’s your professional purpose at this stage of your career?

Mine is to help individuals strive, stretch, and achieve things they never thought possible in their careers.

This potent driver gives life to my daily labors and is the filter for everything I do, from coaching to developing and leading manager, executive, and career workshops, to teaching, writing, and speaking. Importantly, it propels me through a lot of grinding and administrivia that I hate but ultimately enables me to bring my purpose to life.

It took a thoughtful boss, now friend, to help me mine this sense of purpose. More on that in a moment.

What Drives You?

I’ve been driven at different times in my life by the following:

  • Teams of individuals I genuinely loved and wanted to serve.
  • Mundane-sounding offerings such as point-of-sale systems or data quality software that ultimately solved big problems for our customers.
  • A drive to give something back to the people who supported me.
  • A through-line in my life to help those who are struggling or misunderstood.

I found a passion for all of the above, and that passion manifested in a momentary sense of purpose.

Your professional purpose can and will change at your different life stages.

Manufacturing or Mining for a Purpose is Often an Exercise in Reframing

Think about these questions and jot down some notes:

  1. Whom are you serving?
  2. How are you helping?
  3. What burdens are you removing?
  4. What through your efforts are you enabling or empowering?
  5. What part of your job are you passionate about?

If you lead, lead by example with passion and pride in your work. Your team members and peers will see and feel this. Many will mirror you. Your efforts today create their backstories tomorrow. (Think about it.)

Fall in love with the people you serve—customers and team members and how you can help them. For example, the best salespeople I’ve been around aren’t driven by quotas and bonuses but by their unique ability to help customers solve problems.

Think deeply about the situations where you’ve been at your absolute best as a human. What role did you play? How did you affect others during that process?

Think about those moments when you find a state of flow—where the world disappears, and you are singularly focused. What are those moments and situations? How can you create more opportunities to spend time in this state?

An Unlikely Example

If you’re feeling challenged by finding purpose in your work, consider this early pandemic example.

A colleague worked for a decidedly unglamorous paper products company. The firm makes toilet paper—seven days a week, twenty-four hours per day.

When the pandemic hit, what were your worries?

Safety for you and your loved ones? Yes, absolutely.

Food? Sure.

But toilet paper? Well, think about it. That particular shortage scared the heck out of us.

My colleague was on a mission to keep us from experiencing the unthinkable.

What’s your mission that you are or can become passionate about today? Use that to fuel a sense of purpose.

How a Boss/Friend Helped Me Uncover Purpose (My reframe):

I worked in Seattle for a few years as SVP of a software firm where I loved the people but no longer had the passion or felt a sense of purpose for the work. I needed to get back to my work as a coach and educator. It was on one of those typical gray, rainy February mornings when I hadn’t quite finished my first cup of coffee when my boss came up to me and, out of the blue, offered, “You have your purpose all wrong.”

I responded, “OK, this is random, but I’ll bite. What’s wrong with my sense of purpose?”

His response: “You think you’re all about growing businesses, creating and driving strategy, and building teams. You’re very good at all those, but your real value is to help individuals do things they never thought possible in their careers.”

I sat there silent for half a minute or more. I could only offer, “Darn, I never thought of my purpose like that before.”

That moment created clarity. It was there in front of me, but I hadn’t framed it properly.

Sometimes we need a little help from our friends.

The Bottom Line for Now:

It pays to spend some time considering the questions above and mining for your sense of purpose. Give yourself some grace and recognize you can find meaning in every form of work if you frame things properly. Don’t worry if it’s not your life’s purpose—that’s not what you have to solve for now. Serving others, delivering something people need, impacting people positively one encounter at a time, or solving vexing problems for a group you care about are all great starting points. And, hopefully, you’ll get a little help along the way as I did to fine-tune into your life’s purpose.

Art's Signature

 

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Want to spend some time sharing ideas with and learning from great people on this topic? Join our Leadership Caffeine Jam Session #17: Reigniting Passion Through Purpose at Work on 3/10/23 at noon central. If you’re reading this after the session, you’ll find the recording in our Leadership Caffeine Jam Session Archive.