Some things are just meant to be. I just finished reading a great interview with Roy Spence author of the new “It’s Not What You Sell. It’s What You Stand For.” In it he describes the success of several great companies who continue to succeed even in today’s rough economic climate. He credits their ability to define their purpose - the difference you are trying to make in the world. Not touchy feely but a serious way of approaching bottom line decisions.

I imagine myself not unlike you. A little spinning trying to catch the catchable while the wind blows as bad as the economy - juggling feathers in a spring Nor’easter. Business if not gone away is in neutral idling for some sort of signal that it IS okay to make a decision about tomorrow. Remembering too that no decision is in fact a decision itself; and not one without consequences.

I’ll be honest. We have struggled a bit over the past two quarters as we scrambled to adapt to the complete and utter change that just showed up. It was really (seemingly) that quick. Things that were for sure now weren’t and the unsure things just vanished. So you scramble the flight deck and launch what you know. We have been able to stay afloat and even inch ahead a bit. We have never done any direct to consumer product and we have a glorious little tome coming out later this month (more on that some other day). Good things do come from the challenge of change. However I am not sure that this one was on purpose.

The point is that we focused on product, reaching into gut for the sense of direction. (I think a lot about gut and happen to love mine). Our marketing messages continued to focus either on product (yuck!) or to some degree end user benefit (smaller yuck! but yuck! nonetheless). In the building momentum of recent history I really have not been able to gain the space I usually need to clarify. And then I read his interview.

Purpose - the difference you are trying to make in the world. Really - why did you get into business in the first place? How many times have you asked a client that very question? Time to ask yourself - I did.

I joined this company because I believed in the difference Toni was trying to make for people in the world (of work originally). Now, we never verbalized it in exactly those terms but exercising the ideas from “purpose” that is exactly the genesis of The PEOPLE Academy when Toni formed its predecessor nearly 15 years ago. Coming from the faceless, nameless (read unhuman) organizational environments so many of us are familiar with she decided that there could be, should be, ways of accomplishing great organizational success using the power of people and their knowledge, ideas and investment in outcomes that matter.

She started a company based on the deeply held belief that one could make a difference in the way people experienced work and that experience could reach beyond the organizational parking lot all the way home. The success of that purpose is evident in the fact that The Academy has been around for 15 years. Over that time we have evolved the business model more away from direct delivery ourselves and closer to product development that supports those coaches, trainers, mentors, and others who do direct delivery. The power of the approaches was so universal that it is used extensively by those in private coaching now was well.

I mean it IS the PEOPLE Model, right?

The heart of those products hold the passion of the original purpose - that we CAN make a difference. I remember in the early years the Toni tears that would well inside a story of an assembly line woman who had told Toni that never (and I mean NEVER) had someone at work asked her what she thought. It was a successful company on many measures but I wonder at the lack of upside or longer vision (by the way they are REALLY hurting right now). And no, it doesn’t make me feel good. What kind of question was that anyway?

The purpose of all this is exactly that - purpose. You will see a more intentional rememberance of our purpose going forward. A rethinking of the website and other vehicles we use to tell our story. It is not about the products. They are the way in which we fulfill our purpose (mission). But they are not our purpose. I forgot that. You may have too in your own right.

And so tomorrow as we continue to create the HOWs I will certainly be keeping the ‘difference we know we can make’ in facilitating dignity at work and in life (engaging the human element and making people people again).

I am really glad I learned to read. Now go away . . . and think on Purpose. And don’t forget the wine.

Jim

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