A higher purpose is not simply about profit. Symbolising the motivations of our actions and efforts, it reflects something much more aspirational and contributes to our global society. This open access book offers novel solutions to ensure employees support a wider organizational meaning whilst guaranteeing that the company benefits from the employee’s individual sense of purpose. Advocating a shift from previous models and theories, this book contributes to debate and offers insight for both scholars and practitioners. The chapters bring together academic rigour and practical models to help readers distinguish between the fads and influential strategies. Exploring the development of purpose at each level of business, from strategy and leadership to communication, this book avoids theoretical jargon and provides new approaches to building sustainable purpose-driven organizations. This is an Open Access book sponsored by DPMC Spain, UIC Barcelona and Corporate Excellence - Centre for Reputation Leadership

While many managers and executives try different management approaches, they often lose sight of the most critical element of a strong and productive company--a true sense of purpose.

Two distinguished scholars offer eight steps to help organizations discover and embrace an authentic higher purpose—something that will dramatically improve every aspect of any enterprise, including the bottom line. What does a lofty notion like purpose have to do with business basics like the bottom line? Robert E. Quinn and Anjan J. Thakor say pretty much everything. Leaders and managers are taught that employees are self-interested and work resistant, so they create systems of control to combat these expectations. Workers resent these systems, and performance suffers. To address the performance issues, managers double down on the coercion, creating a vicious cycle and a self-fulfilling prophecy. But there is a better way. Quinn and Thakor show that when an authentic higher purpose permeates business strategy and decision-making, the cycle is broken. Employers and employees see themselves as working together toward an inspiring goal, not just trying to hit quarterly targets. They fully engage, become proactive contributors, and, ironically, easily exceed those quarterly targets. Based on their widely acclaimed Harvard Business Review article, Quinn and Thakor offer eight sometimes surprising steps for shifting from a transaction-oriented mind-set focused on constraints to a purpose-oriented mind-set focused on possibility. This iconoclastic book will help any organization discover its authentic purpose and weave it into the fabric of everything it does, leading to unprecedented levels of personal satisfaction, service and product innovation, and economic growth.

Thinkers50 Top 10 Best New Management Books for 2022 A distinguished Harvard Business School professor offers a compelling reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms manage to get purpose right. Few business topics have aroused more skepticism in recent years than the notion of corporate purpose, and for good reason. Too many companies deploy purpose, or a reason for being, as a promotional vehicle to make themselves feel virtuous and to look good to the outside world. Some have only foggy ideas about what purpose is and conflate it with strategy and other concepts like “mission,” “vision,” and “values.” Even well-intentioned leaders don’t understand purpose’s full potential and engage half-heartedly and superficially with it. Outsiders spot this and become cynical about companies and the broader capitalist endeavor. Having conducted extensive field research, Ranjay Gulati reveals the fatal mistakes leaders unwittingly make when attempting to implement a reason for being. Moreover, he shows how companies can embed purpose much more deeply than they currently do, delivering impressive performance benefits that reward customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, and communities alike. To get purpose right, leaders must fundamentally change not only how they execute it but also how they conceive of and relate to it. They must practice what Gulati calls deep purpose, furthering each organization’s reason for being more intensely, thoughtfully, and comprehensively than ever before. In this authoritative, accessible, and inspiring guide, Gulati takes readers inside some of the world’s most purposeful companies to understand the secrets to their successes. He explores how leaders can pursue purpose more deeply by navigating the inevitable tradeoffs more deliberately and effectively to balance between short- and long-term value; building purpose more systematically into every key organizational function to mobilize stakeholders and enhance performance; updating organizations to foster more autonomy and collaboration, which in turn allow individual employees to work more purposefully; using powerful storytelling to communicate a reason for being, arousing emotions and building a community of inspired and committed stakeholders; and building cultures that don’t merely support purpose, but also allow employees to link the corporate purpose to their own personal reasons for being. As Gulati argues, a deeper engagement with purpose holds the key not merely to the well-being of individual companies but also to humanity’s future. With capitalism under siege and relatively low levels of trust in business, purpose can serve as a radically new operating system for the enterprise, enhancing performance while also delivering meaningful benefits to society. It’s the kind of inspired thinking that businesses—and the rest of us—urgently need.

You can change your company's culture. Organizational culture often feels like something that has a life of its own. But leaders are the stewards of a company's culture and have the power to shape and even change it. If you read nothing else on building a better organizational culture, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you identify where your culture can be improved, communicate change, and anticipate and address implementation challenges. This book will inspire you to: See what your company culture is currently like--and what it could be Explore your company's emotional culture Gather input on what needs to be fixed or initiated Improve collaboration Foster a culture of trust Articulate the new culture's mission, values, and expectations Deal with resistance and roadblocks This collection of articles includes "The Leader's Guide to Corporate Culture," by Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price, and J. Yo-Jud Cheng; "Manage Your Emotional Culture," by Sigal Barsade and Olivia A. O'Neill; "The Neuroscience of Trust," by Paul J. Zak; "Creating a Purpose-Driven Organization," by Robert E. Quinn and Anjan V. Thakor; "Creating the Best Workplace on Earth," by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones; "Cultural Change That Sticks," by Jon R. Katzenbach, Ilona Steffen, and Caroline Kronley; "How to Build a Culture of Originality," by Adam Grant; "When Culture Doesn't Translate," by Erin Meyer; "Culture Is Not the Culprit," by Jay W. Lorsch and Emily Gandhi; "Conquering a Culture of Indecision," by Ram Charan; and "Radical Change, the Quiet Way," by Debra E. Meyerson.

In Purpose, world-renowned thought leader Nikos Mourkogiannis turns the entire idea of leadership on its head and shows that the choice between values and success is no choice at all. Mourkogiannis argues that companies must satisfy the need for purpose--a set of values that defines an organization and inspires and motivates its employees. Rather than organization and structure, ideas are what cause companies to go from good to great. Drawing on examples from across multiple industries, Mourkogiannis demonstrates how a strong purpose is the essential first step toward lasting success.

How maverick companies have passed up the growth treadmill — and focused on greatness instead. It’s an axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and profits year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, a small number of companies have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Goals like being great at what they do, creating a great place to work, providing great customer service, making great contributions to their communities, and finding great ways to lead their lives. In Small Giants, veteran journalist Bo Burlingham takes us deep inside fourteen remarkable companies that have chosen to march to their own drummer. They include Anchor Brewing, the original microbrewer; CitiStorage Inc., the premier independent records-storage business; Clif Bar & Co., maker of organic energy bars and other nutrition foods; Righteous Babe Records, the record company founded by singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco; Union Square Hospitality Group, the company of restaurateur Danny Meyer; and Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, including the world-famous Zingerman’s Deli of Ann Arbor. Burlingham shows how the leaders of these small giants recognized the full range of choices they had about the type of company they could create. And he shows how we can all benefit by questioning the usual definitions of business success. In his new afterward, Burlingham reflects on the similarities and learning lessons from the small giants he covers in the book.