About Social Media Today
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“There’s something in the air…”
And the water and soil and every cell of every organism inhabiting planet Earth with us. It attracts us and compels us to perform certain functions for which our organism, molecule, compound was designed. What do you call that? Chaos? Divine Order? Gravity? Destiny?
At the 2010 Net Impact Conference there was a confluence of authors, speakers, and supporters presenting the power of purpose. ‘Seems to me there’s a connection here between that something in the air that compels us and purpose.
Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos.com, Inc. outlines his perspective in the new #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. He posits that ultimately everyone’s goal in life is to be happy, and the way to get there is by aligning passion and purpose with your business.
Katie Kross, Duke University Business School Administrator and Author of Profession and Purpose: A Resource Guide for MGA Careers in Sustainability pointed toward Mark Albion’s study (2000) following 1500 MBA graduates through their careers for two decades post graduation. Eighty-three percent of the graduates followed the most profitable job offers at graduation; seventeen percent followed their passion and accepted less lucrative offers. Of the 1500, 101 became millionaires; 100 of those (255) who followed their passion and one (of 1245) who followed the money. Wow! Whereas almost 40% of those who followed their passion became millionaires, less than 0.1% who followed the money did.
Do you get the feeling that prosperity is somehow tied to passion, purpose?
Dr. Mrim Boutla, brain scientists turned career coach at www.purposeu.com, claims “before knowing what job you want, you need to be able to articulate what difference you want to make, and how your responsible career goals fit into your life priorities.”
The presentation I gave On Purpose: Bringing the 4th Bottom Line to Career/Search/ Values/Vision in 140 words or less was designed to explore the possibility that purpose is what connects the other three bottom lines, people, planet and profit (what is conventionally pictured at the intersection of these three spheres of the TBL commonly referred to as “sustainability” See Figure 1) and that understanding your purpose and that of your targeted employer enhances your career search effectiveness and your lifelong happiness.
This presentation grew out of an ongoing discussion at Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI) where I teach Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship attempting to find the ultimate bottom line. Some have argued that optimizing value for each of three different bottom lines only ends up compromising all three; none are optimized. It’s been suggested that if sustainability (or purpose) is the connector among TBL initiatives, we should be able to optimize that factor while viewing the other three bottom lines as necessary conditions or constraints in achieving maximum sustainability. Could that be our purpose? And does it make more sense that purpose then becomes the ultimate bottom line rather than the 4th Bottom Line?
In our next conversation, we’ll further explore the connection between some higher purpose and profit as presented in Firms of Endearment: the pursuit of purpose and profit (Sisodia, Sheth and Wolfe, Wharton School Publishing, 2007). Their research shows that companies who have been successful in making an emotional connection to all stakeholders (not just shareholders) outperform the S&P 500 cumulative return on investment 10:1 over a ten year period and Jim Collin’s “Great Companies” more than 3:1.
Now that’s something in the air worth inhaling deeply.
