Brand Purpose & Audacious Goals

David Packard, one of the co-founders of HP, once said in a 1960's speech:

"I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company's existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being."

If you have been reading my blog, you know this is something I'm truly passionate about and believe is the foundation of branding! 

Having a core purpose represents the reason WHY an organization exists. This is something that should never change no matter where or how the market turns - it is the soul of the organization. Sadly, many organizations feel their purpose is to satisfy the needs of the shareholders - but this is only a weak answer for organizations who have yet to determine their core purpose. Satisfying the needs of the shareholders is not motivating or inspiring to employees, nor does it provide adequate guidance in moving the organization forward.

To determine the core purpose of your organization, there are a couple of questions you  and your executive leadership team can work through to begin to prioritize WHY your organization exists and what makes it important:

• If you did not have to worry about shareholders/board members/etc., why would you still come to work?
• If someone bought your organization and sold it, so that it no longer existed, what would the world be missing out on?

Once you have your purpose defined & you and the organization truly believes in it, it's important to develop big hairy audacious goals, as described in Built to Last, to propel the organization forward in an attempt to satisfy the purpose. These goals give employees & management an overarching direction for the organization along with inspiration and motivation to complete the task knowing they are doing something above and beyond generating revenue and incremental profits. There are 2 types of goals that can be set:

1. Goal = Purpose: This is where the audacious goal and the brand purpose go hand-in-hand, like how Google's brand purpose, to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible to the world, is also a hairy audacious goal
2. Goal Perpetuates Purpose: In this case the organization has a core purpose and uses audacious goals to move the organization towards its purpose. Take for example JFK & NASA's purpose to Explore the Heavens, as it was defined in the 1960's, and it's audacious goal, to begin to accomplish this purpose, was to send a man to the moon within a decade.

In celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the landing on the moon, I will continue to talk about NASA.

If we look at NASA's purpose, today, it's to "Pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery & aeronautics research", which remains consistent with the 1960's purpose to Explore the Heavens. And it continues to create audacious goals, like sending a people to Mars and beyond, to perpetually drive towards its purpose.

So, I believe it is crucial for organizations to determine its purpose and have the entire organization rally around it. Followed by setting audacious goals to guide to organization forward making that purpose a reality, as many wonderful and amazing things, like landing on the moon, have occurred with a purpose in mind!