00:00 — PETER BOOLKAH
Hi, Peter Boolkah here, and welcome to today’s edition of The Transition Guy.
Joining me today is Katie Burkhart, who is a CEO, founder and keynote speaker.
Welcome, Katie.
KATIE BURKHART
Thank you so much for having me.
PETER BOOLKAH
Today, I thought we would talk about purpose-driven businesses.
The reason I want to discuss that is that there is so much fluff and misinformation surrounding purpose-driven business.
People frequently misunderstand it and think that if you have a purpose-driven business, money becomes a bad word. You can’t make a profit, and everything must simply be for the good of the world.
But surely you can add value to your customers and employees while still making money?
00:48 — KATIE BURKHART
Absolutely. In fact, that is really what being a purpose-driven business is all about.
One way I like to think about it is that you have a point upon which you are focused.
Why are we all coming together as an organisation?
Historically, the answer has been, “We’re here to make money. Period.”
That was why everybody came together to do whatever they did each day.
Increasingly, we are seeing that money alone is not enough to get people out of bed in the morning and bring them to work.
Regardless of how successful you are on the customer side, if you don’t have a top-notch team helping your company do what it does, you aren’t going to succeed.
We need to move away from saying, “Profit is why I’m getting out of bed in the morning,” and towards saying, “This purpose is why I’m bringing everybody together and seeking their contributions.”
When I say “purpose,” I’m looking for your why.
Why do you exist as a company? Why are you doing what you’re doing, and why does it matter?
That doesn’t necessarily mean solving world hunger, although that would be noble and wonderful. It is about understanding what value you deliver.
You make money by delivering that value effectively to the people you serve, repeatedly.
That is what allows you to generate the money you need to scale.
You need to determine how to solve that problem or deliver that value in a way that allows the company to make money.
That is the shift we talk about: money is the resource, not the goal.
02:44 — PETER BOOLKAH
Do you think that has fundamentally changed since the pandemic?
02:48 — KATIE BURKHART
I think the pandemic accelerated a change that had already started.
Before the pandemic, we knew that most founders starting new businesses were already prioritising making an impact above simply making money. That doesn’t mean they didn’t recognise the need for capital.
The pandemic gave us a universal pause in which to sit down and ask, “What do I really want from life? What is important to me?”
Most critically, people asked, “How do I want to spend my time?”
That is a significant shift that we perhaps hadn’t experienced before, especially on the employee side.
Previously, I don’t want to say that we took employees for granted, but there was an expectation that you needed a job, would accept a job and that this was simply a reality of life.
What we now have to recognise is that, as a purpose-driven organisation, your employees are choosing to spend their time working with you.
It is an investment of their time, and coming to work and doing their best work needs to be worthwhile for them.
03:58 — PETER BOOLKAH
We have a couple of things here because I definitely agree with you on the employee front.
That was demonstrated in November when 4.7 million people exited the workforce in the United States. I think that was the biggest exodus on record: the Great Resignation.
That tells us something. People won’t tolerate a shitty job.
KATIE BURKHART
Yes.
PETER BOOLKAH
However, one of the challenges is that most entrepreneurs probably didn’t enter business with any great purpose.
They may have been made redundant and needed something to do. Perhaps they didn’t have the best time at school, considered themselves unemployable and thought they had nothing to lose.
We have some great examples of people who have purpose-driven businesses, but the majority didn’t enter business with that mindset.
How can they make that transition? In fact, can they make that transition?
04:58 — KATIE BURKHART
We would say that every business has the opportunity to become a purpose-driven business, use that model to operate more effectively and thrive in the purpose economy.
However, you will find some businesses that were never genuinely there to deliver value.
They may simply be adding to the noise with the sixty-five-millionth app that does what the other sixty-four million apps already do. They didn’t have a clear value proposition, didn’t know who they were trying to help and didn’t take the time to understand those people.
They were simply looking for a quick win.
Those businesses will have to reconsider what they are there to do and examine the contribution they are making.
Whether those founders choose to step back or discover that they can’t recruit people to help their companies grow, those businesses will slowly fade because they won’t be effective as we move forward.
However, that is a small subset.
For most businesses, there was some problem, change or motivation that caused the founder to start the company.
If an individual started it, they were probably trying to bring their unique capabilities into the world and apply them to a particular problem or opportunity to add value.
The work now involves sitting down and refining that so they can express it intelligently.
They can then begin asking, “How do I bring people in to work on this? How do I listen to the people I’m trying to help? How do I ensure that what we are doing will genuinely help them with what they need within the context of our business?”
The first significant shift is making sure that you understand the value around which the business is centred.
Why do we exist?
Then you work to listen and ensure you deliver that value as effectively as possible for the customer.
You also need to express that enthusiasm to the team members you bring on board. Sharing impact stories about customers you have helped succeed is one excellent way to do that.
07:31 — PETER BOOLKAH
That is the key point. Founders have to take time out and articulate where they add value.
For some people, where they added value before the pandemic may no longer be where they can add value afterwards.
As we’ve said, the world has changed drastically. It won’t necessarily bounce back to what we knew before the pandemic. It will bounce forward, and that future will be different.
In many respects, the company’s value offering may have to be tailored to that new reality.
08:03 — KATIE BURKHART
Yes. One of the elements of being purpose-driven is that if you aren’t learning, you stop.
One of the most important things to remain curious about is the people you serve.
You have the customer or beneficiary, and you need to ask, “Where are they now? Is this genuinely helping them? Is there something else we need to do?”
More importantly, where do our capabilities help them now?
For a while, everybody became an expert on remote work. Many companies didn’t pass the sniff test because you could see that remote work wasn’t one of their unique capabilities.
It felt strange, opportunistic and wasn’t genuinely helpful.
Instead, companies need to look at where they can use what they genuinely do well to keep things moving forward.
From an innovation perspective, where do we need to consider entirely new ways of delivering something, even if what we deliver hasn’t changed?
The world is different. What people need from me and the value I add may be different from before. Alternatively, I may need to solve the same problem in a different way.
Things are also completely different on the employee side.
If you aren’t developing effective systems for managing remote teams or helping people build asynchronous communication skills, you have a problem. Those things aren’t going away.
The idea that everybody will always be together in the office isn’t going to happen. Putting everybody into Zoom meetings for nine hours a day doesn’t work either.
We need to ask, “How do we deliver value? How do we give people the autonomy they are looking for?”
That returns to your point about people who didn’t have a job and went out to create something of their own.
A large wave of people aren’t necessarily trying to build a business. They are trying to capture time freedom and autonomy and ensure their time goes towards the things that matter to them.
Employers need to examine how they can offer that same autonomy.
They need to connect the employee’s personal purpose and unique capabilities to the advancement of the corporate purpose while providing the stability, relationships and community that a larger organisation can offer and that people may not get on their own.
10:43 — PETER BOOLKAH
It is interesting that you say that.
I think most companies operated remotely out of necessity because restrictions were in place and people couldn’t travel.
However, I’m now hearing from several people who say remote working is unhealthy for the individual. They say people must return to the office, it isn’t good for team dynamics and people shouldn’t be working from home.
To me, that says, “We want to go backwards,” rather than forwards.
They will say, “If you commute for an hour and a half each way, it gives you thinking space.”
That kind of bullshit may have worked before the pandemic, but surely the shift has now been so significant that if other working options are available, people will hold out for something that suits them.
KATIE BURKHART
Mm-hmm.
PETER BOOLKAH
How do we deal with that fixed mindset?
I see it frequently. Leaders with this fixed mindset genuinely believe that returning to the old way is the right thing to do.
11:56 — KATIE BURKHART
The challenge is that change is always difficult.
We need to embrace a learning mindset and accept that things will be different. We can then ask how to build upon what is working.
I would be the first to say that remote-only companies can be difficult because people don’t see one another in person.
Humans are social creatures. That matters.
One of the most important sources of purpose and fulfilment in life is our relationships with other people.
I can’t stress enough how important it is for business leaders to ensure that those relationships develop in a genuinely human-centred way.
I don’t think in-person contact will disappear.
What will disappear is the expectation that everybody works from nine to five, sits in the office, attends the same meetings and looks at one another.
That has gone. It isn’t what your team is looking for.
It doesn’t give people the flexibility to work at the times that suit them best. It also fails to recognise that work and life do not exist in neat, separate boxes. They are all part of the same 24-hour day.
There is an excellent opportunity to blend them in ways that are genuinely positive. People saw that possibility during the pandemic.
Having said that, you can’t keep people in Zoom meetings for 24 hours a day. That isn’t healthy or helpful.
How do we balance meeting time with other forms of communication?
How do we create space within our communication expectations?
Most businesses don’t have clear expectations but should.
A company might determine that Tuesdays are meeting-free so that people have space to work.
It might decide that after a particular time in the evening, nobody is expected to respond to Slack messages.
You are creating boundaries and safeguards so people understand what is expected of them and when everybody needs to come together.
On the other side, you need to understand people individually.
When do members of your team work best? How do they communicate most effectively?
We have been hyper-focused on personalisation at the customer level. Some of that personalisation now needs to enter the team environment.
You have more independent agents choosing to come together. It is becoming more like a rebel alliance and less like the old empire model of business, where somebody says, “You will do this because I told you to,” and considers that sufficient.
It isn’t sufficient anymore.
14:40 — PETER BOOLKAH
What steps can business owners take if they find this daunting?
They may believe their perspective—the old way, or what you call the empire’s way—is the best way forward when it isn’t.
What advice can you give them to begin changing their outlook?
14:58 — KATIE BURKHART
One of the first things—
PETER BOOLKAH
Go ahead.
KATIE BURKHART
I was going to say that one of the first things we tell leaders is that they must recognise it isn’t about them.
That is one of the biggest shifts.
Whether you are a business founder or captain of industry, for completely understandable reasons, you are excited about what you’re doing. I’m a founder myself.
You may want to build a large empire and do whatever it is that you want to do in the world.
But to do that effectively, you must recognise that it isn’t about you.
It is about the value you deliver into the world and how effectively you deliver it.
Ultimately, to do that well, you will need to work with other people.
Very few of us can create that level of impact and capital entirely by ourselves.
That is the significant shift that must happen.
When leaders make that shift, many other pieces begin falling into place. That includes how they define success, what they measure and how they communicate with their teams.
16:16 — KATIE BURKHART
The next thing we examine is connecting what you ask the team to do with the reason you are asking them to do it.
Even among people with an older mindset, we are beginning to see interest in approaches such as OKR goal setting, where the intention is to create an aligned effort.
The more you can connect the work with the value you are trying to deliver, the more successful it will be.
You can say, “This is the value we are trying to deliver. This is how we have divided it into steps and a plan. This is where you fit, and these are the contributions you are making.”
You can switch a machine on and off.
A person wants a reason and context. They want to know that the project they will spend several weeks working on is moving the organisation forward in a valuable way.
Those are two top-level shifts that must happen.
17:23 — KATIE BURKHART
After that, we advise leaders to take time to listen and understand what is happening across the organisation.
That includes the customer, the team, partners and other stakeholders.
We typically do that through facilitated sessions where we bring people into the room and run a dynamic conversation.
The C-suite remains in the room and listens firsthand to what people are saying.
In many businesses, whether purpose-driven or otherwise, nobody is genuinely listening to what is happening or considering other people’s perspectives.
What value are people experiencing, compared with the value you believe you deliver?
Those are frequently not the same thing.
Bringing those different perspectives to the table is enormously important.
From there, you can define your purpose and the rest of your core strategy: your vision, mission, values and story.
You can then begin evolving how the business operates from day to day, ensuring those ideas don’t become words locked inside a poster on the wall, where they won’t move the organisation forward.
18:37 — PETER BOOLKAH
As you say, the first place to start must be asking what value you offer the marketplace.
That is where businesses need to begin.
18:48 — KATIE BURKHART
Yes, absolutely.
You need to understand that value as clearly as possible—even in the language customers use.
What do your people say? How do they say it? What does the experience look like for them?
Being able to translate that into how the business operates is enormously important.
Adam Grant conducted a study that has now become widely understood.
If members of your team meet a customer who has the problem they are helping to solve, they become much more motivated.
They understand why they are doing the work and the impact it will have on the world and another human being.
19:37 — PETER BOOLKAH
I think that is where we are now.
We are in the economy of impact. People want to see the result of what they are doing.
If people want to connect with you or learn more about what you do and offer, where should they go?
19:55 — KATIE BURKHART
The first place you can find me is LinkedIn.
I accept connections and will happily answer questions by message or arrange a time to meet if you are so inclined.
The other place to join our community and receive actionable insights about moving towards a purpose-driven model and running a purpose-driven business is our MatterLogic community.
The best way to join is to visit matterlogic.co/weekly. We deliver those insights to your inbox every Monday morning.
20:29 — PETER BOOLKAH
Brilliant. Thank you so much, Katie.
If anything we have discussed today resonates with you and you want more information about identifying the value you deliver to customers and employees—but you are struggling to determine what to do next—head over to Boolkah.com and get in touch.
Let’s arrange a discovery call and see how you can move things forward.
If you enjoyed today’s episode, please like it, share it with others and subscribe so that you don’t miss any future episodes.
Remember that one of the most important things is that failing to learn is learning to fail.
We are operating in a learning environment. Particularly with everything happening around us, we must keep learning and changing.
Katie, thank you so much for being an excellent guest. It has been a pleasure speaking with you today.
