One of my favorite examples of simple elegance comes from California's Orange County Court system. Their NSP is: We unclog the wheels of justice.
You might not think of a court system as having customers, but the Orange County Court believes they do. They consider the plaintiffs, the defendants, the jurors, and the lawyers all their customers. Their NSP speaks to their desire to make a difference in people's lives during times of conflict and stress. They strive to implement the principles of our country in a just, fair, and efficient way for all parties involved.
Interestingly, Orange County's NSP didn't come down from the executive team. It came from a single person. During a leadership program, the 60 top managers, divided among 8 tables, discussed how Orange County makes a difference to customers. When the teams reported back their results, one of the in‐house attorneys stared at the lists on the flip charts and said, “You know what we do? We unclog the wheels of justice.”
You could have heard a pin drop in that room after she said it. Sixty people sat taller in their chairs, smiling because they knew their jobs mattered. I swear that I even saw some of them start to get misty‐eyed.
These words spoke to the highest aspirations of everyone in the room. That single powerful statement contained what Jim Collins refers to in his book Good to Great as “the quiet ping of truth like a single, clear, perfectly struck note hanging in the air in the hushed silence of a full auditorium at the end of a quiet movement of a Mozart piano concerto.”
An ideal NSP is not full of bravado or bluster; it's not something you hope to do. It's something you can do right now. It's fully within your grasp, and every person in the room knows it. It doesn't require explaining or defending, because it taps into what you're already doing and what you want to do more of. Your NSP names who you are on your best day as an organization.
You Don't Have to Create World Peace
You'll notice that none of the preceding examples include discovering lifesaving new drugs or creating world peace. They come from five very different organizations in industries whose products (commercial banking, foundation repair, IT support, travel, and court services) don't always scream “Noble Purpose.”
I intentionally chose these organizations to demonstrate how seemingly ordinary companies are harnessing the power of purpose. These examples demonstrate that no matter what you sell, you can always find your NSP.
If the guys at a concrete company can find their NSP, so can you.
You might also notice that when we talk about these firms, we don't use impersonal pronouns. Instead of saying “The company uses its NSP to differentiate,” we say “The company uses their NSP to differentiate.” Our words create worlds. Referring your company as an “it” is as impersonal as referring to customers as its. The best teams don't talk about the company and the customers; they talk about our company and our customers.
Why Mission and Vision Aren't Enough
Mission and vision statements can be compelling. But more often than not, they're internally focused. In Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Great Companies, former Procter & Gamble (P&G) CMO Jim Stengel writes, “When you strip away the platitudes from those documents, what's left typically boils down to: ‘We want our current business model to make or keep us the leader of our current pack of competitors in current and immediately foreseeable market conditions.’”
In today's more socially aware times, mission and vision have expanded to include other stakeholders. Yet many don't amount to much more than: we want to serve our customers, our employees, and our communities, make as much money as possible, and be nice people while we're doing it.
This is the blah blah blah formula for mediocrity.
Even the largest organizations benefit from a succinct purpose. I was a sales manager for P&G early in my career. During my tenure, I saw our stock rise and split, delivering a 199% return. But by 2000, P&G was in trouble. The company lost $85 billion in market capitalization in only six months. Jim Stengel says, “P&G's core businesses were stagnating and its people were demoralized.”
Great brands weren't enough. P&G's people needed a purpose.
A.G. Lafley, then the CEO, asked Stengel to take on the role of global marketing officer to help transform the culture of the company to one wherein “the consumer is boss.”
Stengel says, “To hit these big targets, we needed an even bigger goal: identifying and activating a distinctive ideal, a purpose. Improving people's lives would be the explicit goal of every business in the P&G portfolio.”
Stengel writes, “A.G. Lafley and I—along with the rest of the senior management team—expected each business leader to articulate how each brand's individual identity furthered P&G's overarching mantra of improving people's lives. We also had to model the ideal ourselves. And we had to measure all our activities and people in terms of the ideals of our brands and the company as a whole. The success of that effort brought P&G's extraordinary growth from 2001 on.”
Notice, each one of the brands had to clarify its alignment toward the purpose. Identifying a larger purpose put P&G back on course. The 175‐year‐old consumer giant remains one of the most admired companies in the world. The company's story demonstrates that no matter how big you are or how long you've been in business, you can always reclaim your Noble Purpose.
Southwest Airlines is another commonly cited example of a company founded on a Noble Purpose. Since you've already seen how Noble Purpose is being used by several less‐high‐profile firms, I'll use Southwest here to illustrate the difference between mission, vision, and purpose. Roy Spence, who worked with Southwest on their purpose in the early days, explains in his book, It's Not What You Sell, It's What You Stand For:
Purpose is the difference you're trying to make.
Mission is how you do it.
Vision is how you see the world after you've done your purpose and mission.
He illustrates how it works at Southwest:
Purpose: “Southwest Airlines is democratizing the skies.”
Mission: “We democratize the skies by keeping our fares low and spirits high.”
Vision: “I see a world in which everyone in America has the chance to go and see and do things they've never dreamed of—where everyone has the ability to fly.”
Their purpose, democratize the skies, trumps everything. It doesn't make Southwest immune from market pressure or potential hazards in the high-stakes, high‐risk game of air travel. What their purpose does do is point their team and act as a lens for decision‐making. If your mission and vision are vague, or you don't have them, don't worry. The right purpose is the most important thing for pointing your team.
Spence tells a famous story from several years ago. Consultants came into Southwest and said that if they started charging for bags, they would immediately add $350 million to the bottom line. “All the other airlines are doing it,” the consultants said. Southwest could make a fast profit if they did the same.
Senior leaders Dave Ridley, Gary Kelly, and others
