How to Create a Common Purpose

August 26, 2024

Good morning! Coming to you this morning from the far Down east Coast of Maine — where if God had made a prettier place… well, you know the rest. Bluesberries, lobster, spectacular shorelines, a thirteen-foot tide, and just one road. “I want, like, some pho.  I’ve been craving pho or some type of soup anywhere I look here (Paris), but I just, I can’t find it.”  (Suni Lee)“The times are urgent; let us slow down.”  (African proverb by way of Rosamond)

There was a time when reading the Sunday paper took the better part of the morning and resulted in ink-stained fingers – and a pile of discarded ads, though also a few to inform the week’s grocery list.Most of us read on a two dimensional computer screen nowadays, but KUDOS to the Minneapolis Tribune for expanding recently rather than down sizing.We need news, we need journalists, we need divergent opinions, we need a free press.And, The Tribune continues to feature a large number of diverse comics and cartoons.  Hooray!

• On the topic of building and sustaining a healthy organization:
  • BTW, Without A Vision:  Bigger, Better, Stronger, Healthier, Happier…  Remember?
  • Leaders who refuse to adapt to new ways of leading risk harming the organization.
  • Those who don’t engage employees in a common purpose… or who define social responsibility narrowly, risk the same.
  • Making these paradigm shifts and others requires a refreshed understanding of an organization’s strengths and how they tie into its aspirations.,
  • Once this new baseline is established, leaders can support the mindset shifts that are needed to implement the changes.
  • This journey can begin with coaching leaders across all levels to address these shifts and proper prioritization.
  • Change can be scary and/or exciting; it’s up to leaders to carve a path leading the organization to embrace the future.  (DeSmet, Etc., et al., 2024)
  • Driving higher organizational health and performance mans focusing on new practices:
  • Empowering employees to make decisions,
  • using technology to create value, and
  • updating leadership styles.
  • Organizational health is a moving target.
  • Leaders at today’s healthiest organizations don’t run them the same way they were run a decade ago.  (Ibid.)
• To create a common purpose, show your employees the why.
  • Common Purpose
    • Past practice:  Engaging employees in the what and the how… but this can be shallow and transactional when it isn’t tied to a deeper sense of purpose and meaning.
    • But, purpose can fall flat when employees can’t tie it to what they do and why they do it every day.
    • Best practice:  Start with the why, or the underlying purpose or deep core value of the organization.
    • Why it matters:  Articulating a common purpose helps connect people emotionally and intellectually to an organization’s direction.
    • When an organization emphasizes a common purpose, employees are afforded more discretion to carry out their tasks.
    • They understand not only what the organization wants to achieve, but also why it does so.
    • Organizations that emphasize common purpose are 2.4 times more likely to be healthy.
    • And, here’s the kicker:  This is even more important given the increasing percentage of younger workers who rank meaningful work above compensation… (Ibid.)
• The following is informed by Dalton-Smith:
  • How to Rest:  Seven Types of Rest
    • Physical Rest — perhaps the most obvious, especially if your daily routine involves physical exertion, or even when/ if not.
    • Mental Rest – Give your mind a break from the stress it is under
    • Emotional Rest – Let your feelings be real and stay away from people and situations that drain you
    • Sensory Rest – Light, noise, screens, devices… 
    • Creative Rest – This might involve stepping up rather than stepping back — enriching your life with art, music, nature, literature, theatre, aesthetics…
    • Social Rest – The crowds, oh the people, oh those pesky neighbors… relationships and social interactions can be draining sometimes.
    • Spiritual Rest – Connecting with that which is greater than self, whether it be prayer, reflection, lectio divina, or a slow walk in the woods.
    • In a future edition we might explore ways of incorporating these types of rest into your daily routine.

Is it I, or is it Generative Artificial Intelligence?BluesberriesIn Maine, wild blueberries grow,
scattered across fields and hills,
small, deep blue, they cling to the earth,
bathing in the summer sun,
sheltered by morning mist,
hidden beneath a sky of shifting clouds.
Their taste, a burst of nature’s sweetness,
a fleeting gift of the season,
gathered by careful hands,
speaks of the land’s quiet, enduring spirit.