Do You Lead Your Organization With Clarity of Purpose?

In my Daily Dose video series, I explore the topics that chief customer officers must grapple with on a daily basis. Join me as I discuss what I’ve learned over the course of my 35-year career, so that you can more effectively do the work that needs to be done.

Today’s video is an excerpt from my online course, inspired by my book, Would You Do That To Your Mother? Click here to learn more about the course and enroll. 

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the video below.


Make Mom Proud companies make it their priority to clarify their purpose. In fact, clarity of purpose gives people’s work meaning. It’s the glue that unites a team and enables everyone to look beyond their individual tasks to delivering an experience that customers want to have again. That they remember.

Let Your Purpose Unite Your Company

Clarity of purpose unites behaviors and actions inside an organization to deliver meaningful experiences. Call center reps are elevated and considered critical to delivering customer value and becoming those customer rescue artists. Retail folks on the floor are hired, inspired and developed to guide their customers to a moment of retail therapy joy. Delivery men and women are part of the bigger picture of delivering peace of mind.

Let your purpose unite your company. Make Mom Proud companies put in the hard work to clarify why they exist and then they do the heavy lifting to embed that purpose into the way they behave and operate their business. They link their business with their purpose in whom they hire, how they conduct themselves and what they will and will not do to grow. Clarity of purpose is their foundation for company behavior and growth.

For example, Gerber has thrived for over 90 years because their mission is being parents’ trusted partner. Supporting parenthood and taking the mystery out of what they call mom life. Gerber does not settle their focus on the products they sell but on being part of people’s lives. Offering information, community and nurturing guidance to families throughout their many, many years where they’re interacting with them.

@GerberLife does not settle their focus on the products they sell but on being part of people's lives. #CustomerExperience #CX Click To Tweet

Your Clarity of Purpose will Elevate Employees’ Work

When your company has clarity of purpose, everyone can define your unique promise for customers’ lives and take it to heart. Your purpose guides both individual and team choices, connecting work across the organization. It elevates people’s work from executing those tasks to delivering experiences that customers want to repeat and tell others about.

Many of us already know of course that Zappos is grounded as a service company that happens to sell shoes but DaVita, one of the leading kidney care companies in the United States has made their purpose giving life. DaVita’s moments of heroism recognize and reinforce actions and behaviors that align with their purpose, giving life. It unites the operation and provides a lens for decision making and action. And the DaVita operating model inspired by their purpose is an integrated approach to keeping kidney care patients healthy and it’s no wonder that companies with clarity of purpose have the most loyal and engaged employees.

The opportunity to deliver a purposeful and consistently understood and expected experience elevates day to day tasks to part of achieving a higher purpose. Giving people and their work direction and joy.

The opportunity to deliver a purposeful and consistently understood and expected experience elevates day to day tasks to part of achieving a higher purpose. #CX #CustomerExperience Click To Tweet

Use Clarity of Purpose to Help Measure Success

According to Grant Thorton’s International Business Report, 70.5% of dynamic or high growth companies across the world have a clearly defined, nonfinancial purpose and people are taking note of what companies stand for and for the decisions that they’re making. They’re making buying decisions armed with that information. People are moving in the direction of companies whose purpose connects to them. And Globe Scan research shows that 40% of the world’s emerging middle class seek brands that have a clear purpose and act in the best interest of society.

Who are you? What’s your purpose? Is everyone in your company united in their role in improving customers’ lives? How would your greatest accomplishment as a company be described based on why you are in business? At the end of each day, month or year, how do you measure success? If you’re serious about being successful, I strongly encourage you to define your organization’s clarity of purpose so you can have a mission that binds everyone together, and can be something they stand behind.


HOW WOULD YOUR COMPANY ACT IF EVERY CUSTOMER WERE YOUR MOM?

How do we cut through the rigmarole of business to give customers the treatment they desire, and employees the ability to deliver it?

In her latest book, customer experience expert Jeanne Bliss recommends making business personal to get the traction you need by focusing on one deceptively simple question: “Would you do that to your mother?”

Learn More

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